Tertiary Scholarships Program
The government of Botswana provides refugees with basic education, that is from primary to secondary level. Tertiary education is not accessible to refugees as neither UNCHR nor Botswana Government funds it. UNHCR has been providing tertiary education to all who did well at Secondary School until the sponsorship was ceased provided tertiary education until 2013 due to resource limitations. During 2017 Skillshare International Botswana (SKIB embarked on raising funds by contacting individuals to raise funds for tertiary education.
Program Evolution
- So far 4 youth (3 females and 1 male) got sponsorship to pursue different courses in different institutions. There are pursuing their courses as follows
- one female is pursuing Diploma in Emergency Care Technology.
- Another female is studying Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety.
Both are Boitekanelo College in Gaborone and their sponsorship is mainly contributed by an American couple working for the Centre for Communicable Diseases (CDC). They, however, contact other people to assist.
- The other female, is pursuing a Diploma in Secondary Education at Tonota College of Education. She is sponsored by a Botswana citizen.SKIB provides accommodation for the three students studying at Gaborone.
- One male is pursuing BSc in Software engineering and Multimedia at Limkokwing University, Gaborone.
In addition, SKIB had forged a partnership with the University of the People (UoP) and Coursera both of which are in the United States of America. The two institutions offer online studies. UoP offers four-year degree courses which are very demanding in terms of time and resources (computers). Students must work at least seven hours a day for five days a week and they have to be working on the computer. Coursera offers short courses where the longest can take up to six months for one to qualify. So far there are 20 youths people who have registered for the studies. Each needs to have a computer but we only have six computers available.