Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) and Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) graduated the third cohort of students under a memorandum of understanding designed to expose students to industry experience and enhance their employability through resource sharing, training, internships, consultancy and mentorship engagements.
To date 70 student consultants have graduated from the LEA Graduate Consultancy Programme in which graduates contribute by providing and implementing practical business solutions for LEA SMME clients.
“This afternoon, I am delighted and proud to announce the completion of forty-one (41) additional consultants into the industry with entrepreneurial skills gained through engagement with enterprises from various sectors of the economy,” said Fidelis Molao, Assistant Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology.
He said, “My ministry recognizes the role played by tertiary education providers in skills development and capacity building. This should be directly linked to employability and entrepreneurship.”
According to the project promoters the result of the student engagement with LEA clients is that students have been able to demonstrate their capability to apply knowledge gained from school to real business situations.
70% of the 70 students from the first two cycles are fully engaged in the market. Out of these 29% of them now operate their own businesses.
Serty Leburu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Botswana Accountancy College (BAC), said “The areas covered practiced by the student-consultants include Marketing which covers corporate branding, website development and setting up of communication channels including social media pages. They also consult on financial re cords management such as introduction on books of accounts, inventory controls, training on accounting software, filing tax returns and also human resource management, where they develop employee contracts, human resource policies just to name a few.”
She said, “The result of the student engagement with LEA clients have over time demonstrated that students have the capability to apply knowledge gained from school to real business situations. The impact of the program has yielded impressive results.”
