| Overview : The Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport & Culture Development (MYSC) was established to create an enabling environment for youth empowerment, sport development and preservation of culture and heritage in collaboration with relevant stakeholders. The Ministry delivers its mandate through six functions namely; Youth Empowerment; Sport and Recreation; Arts and Culture; Department National Service and Internship (DNSI); Botswana National Library Services (BNLS); Botswana National Records and Archives Services (BNARS). The Department of National Service and Internship (DNSI) was established to deliver three national programmes namely; the Botswana National Service Programme (BNSP), National Internship Programme (NIP) and the Graduate Volunteer Scheme (GVS). These three programmes were established for facilitating skills transfer and for improving the employability of the youth. The goal is to give youth participants an opportunity to gain valuable work experience and enable them to explore and gain the relevant skills and knowledge necessary to enter the job market. The National Internship Programme (NIP) was introduced in April 2008 with the goal of skills transfer, mentoring & coaching of young graduates under 35 years of age and engaging them in community development. The programme started enrolling the unemployed young people with graduate qualifications in 2009 with a target of 2000. Currently the programme aims to absorb 6,000 graduates per annum. As it stands, the programme can absorb an average 72% of the graduates per annum. The shortfall is mainly due to several factors including backlog in placement of graduates in disciplines such as Engineering, Information Technology, Finance and marketing. Previously these disciplines were placed in the private sector. However, private sector organisations no longer participate in the NIP resulting in MYSC not able to reach its annual target of placing 6000 graduates. Going forward the Ministry with the support of UNDP would like to engage a consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the NIP to identify strengths and weaknesses in the recruitment and placement procedures, guidelines, work plans, appraisals, compliance checks, exit forms etc and recommend actions to maintain their strengths and improve on weaknesses in contributing to skills transfer for youth employability. The review should recognize the mandate of the NIP in terms of skills facilitation. The consultant will also have to look at global, regional and best practices and recommend the best model for Botswana |
