BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE – Today marked the official launch of the ESHEC Strategy for the next three years and the rebranding of the organisation.
ESHEC started operating as a government department in 2013 and came at a time when the government had to catch up with the threat of an unregulated higher education sub-sector.
At the time, ESHEC focused on developing a framework for regulating higher education institutions and programmes while also assessing higher education for registration purposes and achieved many milestones in this regard.
Ministry of Education acting Principal Secretary (PS) Naniki Mnisi said there were a number of developments in each sector.
“Between 2015 and 2023 there have been many developments in the sector that warrant a change in ESHEC’s approach. This brings the need for ESHEC to rebrand and position herself as a value-add and a partner to higher education service providers and stakeholders especially government and Industry,” she said.
In addition, in 2022 ESHEC began the process of developing this new strategy that will reform its approach and address the serious challenges facing higher education in the country. These challenges are, and are not limited to the following:
“Our higher education system must keep pace with the changes happening globally. Therefore we must prepare our graduates for today’s jobs and the jobs yet to be created,”
“Our country faces the challenge of skills mismatch. It is sad to see talented individuals struggling to find suitable employment due to a misalignment between their acquired skills and industry requirements. This mismatch hinders individual progress and our nation’s economic growth potential,” she said.
Worth mentioning is the lack of an effective role played by industry in the development of relevant learning programmes in higher education institutions.
The strategy recognises that higher education cannot exist in isolation. This strategy ensures industry collaborations and fosters synergy with all stakeholders.
The strategy focuses on the development of learning programmes that address emerging skills, skills mismatch, and scarce skills in our higher education system.
The strategy also ensures efficiency of ESHEC and automates all ESHEC operational processes including those to do with applications from higher education institutions, in a bid to minimise turn-around time.
The Ministry of Education and Training further applauded ESHEC for taking this new route.
As the mother ministry, they pledge to support the strategy and the rebranding, and hope that both maximise the impact of the regulation of the higher education sub sector so that it remains relevant to the challenges and needs of the country and its economy.
