Botswana (Botswana Accountancy College) 2020 Virtual graduation

On Saturday 5th December, BAC hosted its first ever Virtual graduation ceremony with over six hundred graduates at undergraduate and postgraduate levels conferred. The virtual ceremony was hosted via the Zoom platform and broadcast on the BAC Facebook Page and YouTube Channel. The graduating classes were from the Schools of Business and Leisure, Computing and Information Systems and Postgraduate Studies. The Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University Professor Sir Chris Husbands, the Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Sunderland Professor Sir David Bell; and the Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Derby Professor Kathryn Mitchell conferred the graduands virtually across the thirteen (13) graduating programmes.

BAC graduated the first cohorts of the BSc. (Hons) Business Intelligence and Data Analytics and BSc. (Hons) Mobile Technologies from the School of Computing and Information Systems. In her welcome remarks, BAC Executive Director, Ms Serty Leburu highlighted that the Virtual ceremony was one of the many firsts for the institution as this is the first time the BAC graduation was hosted remotely. She applauded the graduating Class of 2020 for their hard work and self-discipline throughout the year as it wasa challenging year and that the graduands persevered until the end. “I am therefore very proud that despite some of these challenging situations, our students managed to complete their studies and we are here today to bear testimony to their determination and strength of mind and character”. Ms Leburu further went on to highlight the various interventions BAC put in place to support students due to the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic such as the issuance of data sim cards tostudents, distribution of student laptops, and the provision of socio-psychological support for students to enable them to continue with their studies.

Ms Nana Konadu Lorato Anani is the 2020 Valedictorian and graduated with a First Class in BSc. (Hons) Computer Systems Engineering. When delivering her passionate speech, she encouraged the Graduating Class of 2020 to believe in themselves and that they should take pride for coming out victorious after such a challenging academic year. BAC prides itself with local and international partnerships and for the second year in a row, the institution was able to award the Angela Matlapeng Awards (AMA). These were awards introduced in 2019 when 2015 alumni, Ms Angela Matlapeng received a best student award for BSc. (Hons) Computer Systems Engineering. The partnership between BAC and Ms Angela Matlapeng comes as a result of her journey in the male-dominated ICT profession and gives the award to celebrate and motivate women to take up ICT programmes. The best students across all thirteen programmes received awards for their outstanding academic excellence and overall best students in the three partner universities will receive scholarships to pursue their
masters.

The Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Scienceand Technology, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe commended the class of 2020 for demonstrating their greatest strength, discipline, and agility as they embraced these changes with courage and enthusiasm.“Distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen, on this special day I am very delighted and most honoured to
announce that BAC produced magnificent results this year with the highest number of sixty-four (64) first classes in its entire history of achievements through ten undergraduate degree programmes.” Dr Letsholathebe went on to applaud the graduates, “You should all be delighted to be part of history and of a generation that lived to face and overcome challenges brought by this pandemic to prove that the human spirit is undeniably unbreakable. Despite the challenges that you experienced in 2020, there is much more to celebrate such as the resilience of mankind.”

The 2019 BAC Valedictorian Mr Tavonga Muchuchuti ended the proceedings with an energetic closing, challenging the graduates to face all challenges head on and face the world with the confidence that they will make it. We are proud that the students embraced the new changes and support offered to complete their studies leading to success completion of their
studies as witnessed on the 5th December 2020 during the Virtual Graduation Ceremony.