Mbabane- Eswatini’s scholarship budget is the highest in the region on a per capita basis, with government allocating about E700 million annually towards tertiary education, Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg has said.
Rijkenberg said the substantial allocation demonstrated government’s commitment to developing human capital, but stressed that the money should increasingly be channelled towards qualifications that respond to the needs of the economy.
Speaking during the 1st Annual Future of Finance Summit organized by Khula Group, the Minister said government needed to critically assess whether scholarships were being awarded in the right areas and for qualifications that would improve employment prospects.
“Our scholarship budget per capita is the highest in the continent,” Rijkenberg said, while acknowledging that the figure needed to be double-checked.
He said about E700 million of the country’s roughly E6.9 billion budget was currently being committed to scholarships.
The Minister said the scale of government’s scholarship investment meant that greater attention should now be paid to whether the funding was achieving the desired outcomes.
“A good question to say, are the scholarships being applied in the right place? Are the scholarships being applied to the right category of degrees?” he asked.
Rijkenberg said there was room to improve the scholarship programme by ensuring that the country remained aligned with developments in the global economy.
He said greater emphasis should be placed on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging fields.
“We do need to really remain up to date with the latest and be able to evolve quickly so that we really make sure the focus is on STEM, the focus is on AI, the focus is on the cutting edge that we need to do,” he said.
The Minister also highlighted the contribution of international partners to Eswatini’s tertiary education funding, saying the country received scholarship support from countries including Taiwan, India and Serbia.
He said these partnerships provided additional opportunities for emaSwati to acquire tertiary qualifications.
However, Rijkenberg’s remarks suggest that the focus should now move beyond the size of the scholarship budget to the relevance of the qualifications being funded.
This comes as concerns persist over the mismatch between the skills produced by tertiary institutions and those required by employers.
The Minister said government had a responsibility to equip citizens with relevant skills, but the private sector and tertiary institutions also had important roles to play in ensuring that graduates were prepared for the labour market.
He said the private sector should clearly communicate the skills it requires while institutions should respond by adapting their curricula.
Rijkenberg said internships could also help bridge the gap between university education and the workplace, arguing that students with practical work experience were better equipped when they entered the labour market.
He said government would like to see a stronger link between scholarship spending, skills development and employment outcomes.
“Government desperately would love to have that kind of promise to say that if you do this, you know, we will do this,” Rijkenberg said.
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