Visits to the College
WUSC University and Colleges Mission
A team of four senior representatives of Universities and Colleges in Canada visited the Botswana College of Agriculture on 7 th May. The goal of the visit was to provide an opportunity for Canadian university and college representatives to identify partnership opportunities through engagement with the College, University of Botswana, Council of the Botswana International University of Science and Technology, other colleges and government ministries. The mission was led by Paul Davidson, WUSC Regional Director. Other members of the team were Dr Alistair Summerlee, President, Guelph University, Dr Richard Lobdell, Vice Provost and Dr Evelyne Forget, Faculty of Medicine, both from the University of Manitoba.
At the College the team met with the College Management and Heads of department. Issues discussed included student and staff exchanges, joint academic programmes and joint research opportunities. The aim was to continue the existing relationship between Botswana institutions through the creation of student and faculty exchange opportunities and support of in-country capacity building of tertiary institutions. The intention was to broaden and deepen common areas of learning within an increased understanding of one another’s biophysical, socio-political and economic environments.
Some areas of Collaboration that were suggested included the accreditation of programmes at the College, extension linkage, in-service training, animal welfare, agro-forestry and sustainable forestry, herbarium digitalisation, food science and the development of the MSc in Animal Science.
The visited was organised by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC). WUSC has volunteers in the country and has been active in Botswana for over 25 years, dealing in scholarship management and international community learning.
Lesotho Agricultural College Study Tour
Five members of the Lesotho Agricultural College (LAC) visited the College for two days from May 14th 2007. The purpose of the visit was to benchmark as they have the same mandate as the College. The aim was to effectively and efficiently implement its strategic plan based on what they learnt in BCA. One of the goals of the plan was to make the LAC semi- autonomous.
The five members of the delegation were Mr Ts’epang Mantutle - Vice Principal, Ms Mapaki Tukula – Human Resource Officer, Ms Puleng Letuma – Lecturer, Mrs Mosele Lenka – Principal Lecturer and Mr Kopano Ts’ehla – Lecturer.
Briefing the Deputy Dean, Prof. Elenimo Khonga, the Vice Principal Mr Ts’epang Mantutle explained that the LAC was merged with the National University of Lesotho in 2000, but was later de-merged in 2004 and made a department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. He said currently, the LAC was developing a five years strategic plan which was intended to run from April this year to March 2012. He said the rationale for the strategic plan was to re-establish LAC to enable the institution to respond to the dynamic needs of the outside environment.
At the College the delegation met with Academic Services, College Services and Finance departments. They also had a briefing at the College Library, toured academic departments and the farm.
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