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Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris, says the transformation of the University of Botswana to a High Performing Organisation (HPO) will open opportunities that will eventually help the university cement its position as a centre of academic excellence.

Professor Norris was addressing members of staff on progress so far achieved towards transforming UB into a high-performance university. Following the address to staff, the Vice Chancellor later on addressed the Editors Forum.

He observed that given the global competitiveness of higher education post COVID-19, high performing university models now focused more on strengthening their core functions and co-creation with industry to create value.

Consequently, such functions enabled these universities to outperform their peers and attract high calibre students and professionals internationally, added Professor Norris. To that end, he said funding for the university was also made easier because of value generated for all stakeholders in addition to improving socio-economic development.

“All we need to do is to have a positive attitude towards change so that we realise our potential,” said Professor Norris. As such, he explained that the University of Botswana was conducting a change readiness assessment the results of which would pave way for the development of change management strategy programmes besides change management training.

In addition, the University is in the process of reviewing its staff Performance Management System, remuneration strategy, development of a competence framework, job profiling and evaluation with transition to a new structure expected to take two to three years.  

Professor Norris said the review would inform the development of an optimal organisational structure and job profiles that would be guided by a job evaluation policy and guidelines, remunerations guided by a remuneration strategy and revised performance management system.

He further spoke about a situational analysis whose purpose was to document critical aspects emanating from a detailed review of current UB operations. He said recommendations of the analysis would serve as a key input and guide for developing a new organisational structure, performance management system and related instruments. That, he added, would also ensure that the University delivered on its strategy. 

Professor Norris highlighted the fact that for UB to become a modern and high performing university, it ought to become financially sustainable, contribute to meaningfully to Botswana’s socio-economic development and focus more on research and development. In addition, the University must optimise service delivery and heighten student experience.

Other attributes of a high performing university, he noted, were good leadership and governance, high performing employees, state of the art technology and customer focused processes, among others.