By Mosa Mojonothoane
MASERU
Council on Higher Education (CHE) will provide a platform for aspiring higher education scholars to feed from the 15 local Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and those from South Africa and Botswana.
The Council has organized a Higher Education Fair that is aimed at providing a platform for HEIs to share information about their programmes and entry requirements, and help people who wish to apply to do so on the spot.
It will also be graced with the presence of financiers of tertiary students such as the National Manpower Development Secretariat, American Embassy, Higher Life Foundation, Vodacom Foundation and Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, who will provide information on how students can access scholarships.
This is the annual event that seeks to bring together the academic community and stakeholders to deliberate on the improvement of higher education, provide career guidance and address key emanating issues in the sector at the national level.
It is open to those who are preparing to go into tertiary institutions either for undergraduate or post graduate studies. However, students who are still in Grade 11 are highly encouraged to participate so that they are inspired to work hard towards their preferred careers.
“CHE encourages parents and guardians of young people to accompany them and attend various career guidance sessions with them so that they can help them in deciding which programmes to enrol for,” mentioned CHE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Litšabako Ntoi while addressing the media on Wednesday.
She said among the main objectives, the fair will provide higher education institutions with a platform to showcase their programme offerings; enable prospective tertiary students to obtain necessary information on higher education in one place; give financiers of tertiary students an opportunity to showcase their offerings; and provide career guidance to the prospective tertiary students.
She further informed that for this year, the council has resolved to address the issue of employability of graduates as guided by the National Skills Audit report 2022. Dr. Ntoi assured that they are working tirelessly to make sure that HEIs produce employable graduates.
“The National Baseline Skills Audit study, which took place last year, reveals that the corporate industry does not get necessary and useful skills in our graduates and the challenge leads to a completely incompetent work environment. That is one of the key issues that will be addressed during this fair,” she said.
For the first session on March 2, the fair will accommodate the Northern Region and March 3 will be for the Southern Region while the Central Region is welcome on any of the two days.
The career guidance programme will be the same for both days so that those who come on the first day do not have to come again on the second day to give room to those who have not participated.
Expected are the following local HEIs: National University of Lesotho, Botho University, Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, Lesotho College of Education, Lerotholi Polytechnic, National Health Training Centre, Scott College of Nursing, Roma College of Nursing, Maluti Adventist College, Paray College of Nursing, Institute of Development Management, Lesotho Institute of Development Management, Lesotho Boston Health Alliance, Centre for Accounting Studies and Lesotho Agricultural College.