ABM awards first Anglia Ruskin University Degrees

ABM University College held a graduation ceremony last Saturday at their campus in Gaborone Block 6 and awarded degrees to the first products of their partnership with UK based Anglia Ruskin University. The event was themed ‘Enhancing Entrepreneurship through appropriate Human Resource Development and guest of Honour, Tebogo Matome, CEO of Local Enterprise Authority said it called for introspection, specifically on the role of educational institutions in fostering creativity and innovation among students. He said to the students and their well-wishers; “There is consensus and common understanding that as a country we cannot make progress in our development, unless our human resource development is in consonance with our developmental needs. “It is also a fact that we cannot boast of first class entrepreneurs unless our universities become more entrepreneurial by doing more to foster an entrepreneurial culture within their students.” The five degree courses in business, accounting, finance, tourism and human resources were also developed with the assistance of relevant industry players, Matome revealed. “We have come to witness the bursting of a heavily pregnant cloud. My hope and the assurance that I have received is that the individual droplets of this cloud will deliver long term benefits to Botswana and the world at large. “It is our view at LEA that Botswana’s progress in the global Competitiveness rankings is heavily reliant on the quality of our educational institutions and in the same vein, the graduates of the very same institutions.” During the past 23 years since ABM was established in 1989 the college has contributed massively to the human resource development of this country having trained thousands of students who are now employed in different sectors of this country’s economy according to Matome. Welcoming guests to the institution, ABM Executive Director, Daisy Molefhi stated that in pursuit for excellence ABM continued to collaborate with other academic institutions to enhance service delivery and broaden scope of service delivery. She further revealed that plans to transform ABM into a fully fledged University were far advanced. ” ABM’s journey of transformation is an exciting adventure to those of us (The ABM Family) who are active players in the process. We are very much aware that to transform into the University of Choice will not come easy and it won’t be an event but a process that coins together all aspects of quality service delivery,” she said. Molefhi further said ABM continued to pursue its two distinct strategic objectives of Academic Excellence and Physical growth and that partnering with Anglia Ruskin attested to the first while their expansion plans attested to the latter. “I am pleased to inform this gathering that Masunga Campus construction commenced in March this year and the intention is to have the first group of students in Masunga Campus by August this coming year. Significant expansion is also taking place at our Francistown Campus where we opened doors to our own premises in July 2012. To-date the Francistown Campus houses 450 students.” Excited to meet the first Artnglia Ruskin graduates from ABM University College, Professor Lesley Dobree, Vice Chancellor of the UK university said the hard work, determination, grit and resilience need by a student from the first day to the last were much like those of admired sportsmen. “As Anglia Ruskin graduates we know that you will be in great demand. The most recent statistics in the UK show that very nearly nine out of 10 of our students were in work of further study within six months of graduating,” Dobree assured the students and further said; “I have no doubt that our students’ success in the world of work stems directly from the quality of our courses and our close relationships with such international brands as Specsavers, UPS, Harrods, Volvo, Barclays Bank and Armed Services(the army, navy and ariforce) for all of whom we deliver degree level courses in the work place- our project with Barclays Bank winning two national awards in the last year alone.” Despite being a modern university, she said they had eight officially world leading research areas and that they were working in partnership with the University of Stellenbosch to develop entrepreneurship in South Africa, among other things.