Spar Supermarket has established a cooking school to teach its employees and Batswana in general the art and science of cooking.

Delivering a keynote address at the launch of the facility, the Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Unity Dow commended Spar for being the first private company to participate in the Target 20 000 project through their academy of learning.

Dr Dow said the ministry launched the project in order to upscale and upskill 20 000 post junior and senior secondary school youth by the end of 2016 through vocational training at both private and public institutions.

"For Spar Botswana to have set this sort of facility, they were in fact ahead of the pack in upscaling and upskilling the young people of Botswana to have relevant vocational skills for the industry. It is also a contribution to adding value and honour to vocational careers," she said.

Dr Dow said the supermarket's initiative was in line with the ministry's mandate and strategies, adding that the government has recently adopted the Education and Training Sector Strategic Plan (ETSSP), a five-year transformation plan for the ministry with 11 priority areas.

She noted that the plan's key areas include aligning curriculum to industry needs and skills development.

For his part, the general manager of Spar Botswana, Mr Desmond Barigeiro said Spar has always placed emphasis on its people and that they were passionate about their products, services and experience.

"We have always recognised that our people are our most expensive asset, and that knowledge, skills and attitudes of the people that work for our organisation define our advantage over the competition," he said.

Mr Barrigeiro said the values of passion, family and entrepreneurship have pushed practices in people development and management, and has ensured that training takes place on a strategic role in their company.

"We are also pleased to have developed the training we offer and currently we have eight accredited training courses that our people benefit from. Our independent retailers are part of the community and they employ over 2 500 people. Most of these people have benefitted from the training," he said.

He said the new facility would allow them to get a host of additional training courses registered with the Botswana Qualification Authority to benefit the people they employ as well as ensuring that Spar strives to deliver the best products, services and experience to the community they serve.