This week, Minister of Basic Education and Child Welfare, Nono Mokoka-Kgafela, made a significant announcement in Parliament: the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) has officially ended its partnership with Cambridge University Press and Assessment (CUPA).
Opening her statement, Kgafela underscored that BEC, in fulfilling its mandate, has firmly embedded robust quality assurance frameworks within its assessment processes to guarantee excellence in examination delivery. She emphasized that this quality assurance framework is strengthened through collaboration with independent organizations to add an extra layer of verification.
“The BEC has, for that reason, maintained for a long time a quality assurance partnership with CUPA for its high-stakes examination, Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE). In the current form, the partnership is profiled as accreditation with certification.”
Kgafela traced the origins of the alliance between BEC and CUPA back to the era when BEC operated as the Examination, Research & Testing Division (ERTD) under the ministry responsible for general education. The core objective of this collaboration was to assist the Botswana government in replacing the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate (COSC) with a localized qualification, BGCSE, that would not only gain international recognition but also match the standards of the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), as outlined in the revised National Policy on Education of 1994.
“Further to developing BGCSE, CUPA was to monitor the application of assessment standards across all examination processes every year to ensure that the BGCSE qualification maintains international recognition and global competitiveness.”
She further explained that from 2012 to 2025, the relationship evolved through contractual cycles initially lasting three years, then two years, with each contract gradually narrowing in scope. This progression marked the maturation of the partnership from a collaborative effort to an accreditation arrangement.
“The effect of the accreditation is that CUPA would jointly with BEC issue certificates that are branded with the BEC and CUPA logo as well as confirm that BGCSE was equivalent to international standards as represented by IGCSE, and further provide an equivalency statement on each of the candidate’s certificates.”
Kgafela disclosed that BEC has been paying an annual fee of approximately P27 million, subject to exchange rate fluctuations, to CUPA for their services.
She noted with pride that over time, BEC has developed the capacity to independently manage certain examination processes without CUPA’s assistance.
“At the BEC board meeting of August 2024, the Board resolved to approve a strategy that BEC would use to gradually withdraw from CUPA’s accreditation with certification contract after the end of the 2024 examination cycle, which was on the 30th of April 2025. The strategy was subsequently approved by the cabinet in October 2025.”
As part of this transition strategy, BEC signed a three-year accreditation without certification contract to ensure continued independent quality assurance of assessment operations, supporting the delivery of credible qualifications.
“Accreditation without certification is a scaled-down contract which will cost about 552,000 Euros. This is equivalent to about P10 million annually compared to the previous contract, with a cost of P27 million annually. The accreditation without certification contract will run until the 2027 examination cycle,” she confirmed.
Kgafela revealed that this amendment means Cambridge and BEC will no longer jointly issue BGCSE certificates, signaling that BEC will now independently design and issue a new certificate under its own authority.
Additionally, the BEC board has approved the design of the new 2025 BGCSE certificate, marking a new chapter in the journey of Botswana’s educational assessment.
