In the 21st century, the use of information technology in the classroom is advancing rapidly, especially in higher education. The Internet, through social networking, has made it possible for students to learn and teachers to teach outside the classroom walls. Facebook in particular has made it possible for students to interact and communicate with their teachers and among themselves about their progress and about the problems they encounter in learning. Yet, limited research exists on the use of Facebook in education in Sub‐Saharan Africa more especially in Botswana. This is in spite of the observation that Sub‐Saharan Africa is the fastest growing Internet population with a growth of more than 2500% between 2000 and 2011. This study therefore set out to examine (1) the students' interest in using Facebook to facilitate group work activities in the Advanced Oral Presentation Skills course; (2) whether the students interact and communicate using Facebook on matters relating to the Advanced Oral Presentations course; (3) whether the students benefitted from using Facebook for learning advanced oral presentation skills; and (4) what challenges the students encountered when using Facebook in the Advanced Oral Presentations course. In this trial study, students were allocated groups and assigned to conduct their group activities via Facebook. Although this was optional, more than 80% of the groups opted for Facebook and less than 20% chose to do their group work traditionally. A follow‐up evaluation of the experiment was done through a questionnaire and interviews. The findings suggest that Facebook could facilitate student communication and interaction about group assignments.

Employers in today's competitive and challenging global world prefer employees who possess "soft skills" in addition to "hard skills" because they make an impact and create a good impression in the workplace. This study examined employment readiness of the University of Botswana (UB) students who took the Advanced Communication Skills (GEC 213) course in 2013. It also explored their perceptions on the importance of these skills. A triangulation approach was used involving a survey and interview to explore issues pertinent to the study questions. Ninety (90) students enrolled for the GEC 213 course completed a questionnaire and six (6) were interviewed face to face. The study found that the students regarded the skills taught in GEC 213 as very important and that more students should be enrolled in this course. The study suggests the infusion of these skills in other courses in the University, and that workshops should be conducted for all the other teaching staff on how to infuse communication and other soft skills in their courses. The study therefore recommends more research to get the views of employers regarding the readiness of the UB graduates for employment and for using soft skills. It also recommends a study comparing the perceptions of the employees with those of the University of Botswana students with regard to the students' readiness for employment.

The ability to read and interpret textbooks and other assigned material is a critical component of success at university level. Therefore, the aims of this study are twofold: to evaluate the reading levels of first-year students when they first enter the university to determine how adequately prepared they are for university reading. It is also to find out if there will be any significant improvement after going through the academic literacy course offered to first-year students. The participants were 51 first-year undergraduate humanities students enrolled in the Communication and Academic Literacy course at the University of Botswana. The data were collected through a reading test adopted from Zulu which was administered at the beginning of the first semester. The same test was administered at the end of the semester after the students had gone through the academic literacy course to see if there was any difference in performance. The findings of this study indicate that there is a mixed and wide variation of students reading competency levels when students first enter the university and that a significant number of first-year entrants are inadequately prepared for university reading.

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