office of the vice chancellor
Deputy vice chancellor academic affairs
Deputy vice chancellor research and innovation
deputy vice chancellor finacial administration
The Centre is a non-degree awarding, academic centre comprising two departments: Academic Literacy and Social Sciences (ALSS) and Business Management and Entrepreneurship (BME). The BME Department offers courses in Entrepreneurship and Management for undergraduate and postgraduate students to ensure that BIUST graduates can effectively perform management and entrepreneurship roles in the economy and be able to create sustainable business ventures or become intrapreneurs in established business organisations. The Department of Academic Literacy and Social Sciences ALSS) offers Academic and Professional Communication courses to undergraduate students with the objective of improving their communication skills (oral and written) to prepare them for effective professional communication in their future roles as scientists and engineers. The Department also offers Chinese Language and Culture courses to give BIUST students a competitive edge over their peers with similar qualifications. The Centre also runs Innovation and Entrepreneurship Bootcamps which are intensive training workshops where the focus is on one element or area where there is a skills gap amongst a specified target group. Furthermore, plans are at an advanced stage to offer tuition for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) qualification. These courses and programs are intended to help BIUST students, staff, and members of the public to acquire skills and competencies useful for their careers and businesses.
Engineering deals with design, development, implementation, operation and maintenance of industrial/productive systems. The Faculty of Engineering and Technology offers undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and facilities to train aspiring Engineering deals with design, development, implementation, operation and maintenance of industrial/productive systems. The Faculty of Engineering and Technology offers undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and facilities to train aspiring students to become professionals in their respective fields. The vision of the Faculty is to be a leading provider of Engineering and Technology education using innovative approaches to enhance lifelong career opportunities to students and become professionals in their respective fields.
The Faculty of Sciences is one of the academic Faculties of BlUST and comprises of: Basic Science Education; Earth and Environmental Sciences including Geology; and Applied Sciences including Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science and Physics. AlI the programmes in these subject areas will emphasise applications to the real world and with industry, commerce and research and thus promote the employability of our graduates.
The Postgraduate School undertakes coordination of supervision, learning and research for Postgraduate programmes. The coordination takes place through liaison with Deans of Faculties, HODs and Departmental Representatives to enrol, admit, monitor progress, examine and graduate students.
The BIUST library is a vibrant centre designed to support teaching and learning by providing services and products that enhance critical thinking and research skills. The library provides study areas for the users, consisting of traditional quiet study areas, open plan area, computer rooms and discussion rooms. It offers an environment that is both stimulating and relaxing for the users. The well trained and dedicated library staff is always on hand to provide the users with tailor-made services including among others, orientation for new users, reference service, inter-library loan service, and training on information literacy skills. This ensures that the user’s BIUST library experience contributes to lifelong learning.
The Directorate of Pre-University Academic Programmes (PUAP), is an outreach and engagement directorate that exists for “Taking science and technology to the people, hence the two fundamental approaches which are meant to:
Make science & technology work for the people
Create public awareness and appreciation of STEM
It exists for the two fundamental objectives.
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Provide Platform for Utility of BIUST’s Technical Expertise Reservoir by all Communities (Linking BIUST and the People): BIUST endeavors to impact directly on the lives of the people of Botswana through interaction and interface at level of the people. Through PUAP, BIUST’s impact reverberates nationally and is unlimited by geographical placement thus forestalling the ‘Ivory Tower’ phenomenon. PUAP’s activities are aimed at contributing to the socio-economic development of all districts in Botswana and PUAP is an interface through which the university, using its expert pool provides:
- Relevant academic programme offerings to communities as dictated by specific milieus.
- Continuing education and lifelong learning programmes to locals and industry employees leading to full degrees or whatever levels as demanded by the environments.
- Locally directed interventions as community outreach endeavors such as ‘student role-modeling and mentoring to disadvantaged children in communities.
Creating Public Awareness of STEM: It is geared at stimulating interest in the subjects through voluntary interaction with natural phenomena that are inherently scientific thus leading to greater numbers of children (pre-tertiary levels) voluntarily and ably engaging in mathematics and science in that way creating a robust pipeline of quality mathematics and science students for BIUST and generally for tertiary education level participation. The endeavor is motivated by the reality of scarce numbers of students with interest in Mathematics and Science to be able to take-up the Science and Technology programmes that would transform Botswana into a knowledge economy which it aspires to be. The concept is new in Botswana and therefore without precedence and benchmark within Botswana.
The essence of creating public awareness of science is to ingeniously and deliberately present science and mathematics as inherently basic to our everyday life which every person is effortlessly living. Creating appreciation of existence of mathematics and science in most life phenomena demystifies mathematics and science and cultivates interest of learners and the general populace in the subjects and should cause a paradigm shift in the perception about mathematics and science. PUAP undertakes to create environments that promote voluntary and active but unconscious learning through:
- Nurturing and mentoring of learners and public (in identified problem areas) through various media thus building the needed confidence. This will include in-residence (on the BIUST campus) experience; enrichment residential programmes during university vacation times; live interactive participation in solving mathematics and science problems
- Establishing and conducting mobile Science Circuses that will reach out to learners throughout the country to bring about live interactive mathematics and science activities
- Development of Science movement which will enable interaction with and observation of natural and scientific phenomena (exposure, play, admiration, experimentation, utilisation etc)
- Creating mathematics and science support chain linking primary schools, secondary schools, relevant Technical College and the BIUST (Feeder Chain)
- Supporting mathematics, science and technology fairs (STEM Fairs)
PUAP provides a conduit through which the public and local industry interacts with the fountain for technical expertise to seek solutions to its technical problems in pursuit of economic advancement through STEM.
Through its budget PUAP is to facilitate and coordinate participation of the university’s expert pool in community outreach and other tasks as dictated by the technical demands of the communities.
Mandate
The Directorate of Registry Services is responsible for overseeing the students‘ academic life cycle from pre-enrolment to graduation providing systems and services required to ensure the smooth and efficient functioning of academic services. Our internal clients are students and academic staff while, our key external clients that we serve primarily through data and reporting functions are: the Department of Tertiary Education Financing (DTEF), Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) and Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA).
Mandate
Student Affairs and Campus Life is a division within the University structure mandated to provide learners support services. It focuses on the co-curricular activities, student welfare and governance, student leadership management, academic support and psycho-social matter, health and wellness of students, students living facilities, as well as shaping institutional practices in such a way that contexts are conducive to successful academic and personal-social engagement. Student Affairs and Campus Life derive its mandate from its functional areas below;
- Students Support and Welfare
- Students Career Development and Support Services
- Students Leadership Training and Mentoring
- Special Needs Support
- Health Services
- Refectory Management
- Students Residence Management
- Sports and Recreation