By William Mbangula
Ongwediva
No nation can develop without adequate engineers and technologists.
Similarly, no nation can develop by relying solely on expertise from other nations to propel its development agenda.
This is the view of the Father of the Nation and Chancellor of the University of Namibia (Unam), Dr Sam Nujoma. He made the statement when he launched the ground-breaking ceremony of the Faculty of Engineering and Information technology here on Saturday.
Nujoma called on the Namibian people to strive to invest resources in the critical areas of engineering and technology, if the nation is to attain the goals set up for the national development programmes and Vision 2030.
“The establishment of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at Unam should not be seen as competition with the Polytechnic of Namibia. The two institutions each have complementary roles to play.
“While the Polytechnic’s programmes are aimed at producing technologists, the academic programmes at Unam are meant to produce engineers, … human resources cadres that our country critically needs for industrialisation.
Thus, these two institutions are not in competition, but instead complement each other,” he said.
The Chancellor expressed profound gratitude and appreciation to the governments of the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of India and the Federal Republic of Nigeria for their expression of support for the new faculty. He also lauded the support of the government of Finland through the University of Oulu.
Said the Chancellor: “I wish to call upon other development partners and friends to come forward and support our Government in this project, which is necessary and crucial if Namibia is to attain Vision 2030. I also wish to express my appreciation to the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, as well as the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya for having agreed to take Unam pre-engineering students in their engineering faculties from next year. The agreement also has a component on academic staff exchange, which will assist us as a university in terms of capacity building.”
He noted that such a gesture of goodwill and cooperation is important in view of the decision taken by some South African academic institutions to limit the number of Namibian students they admit to their engineering programmes. These institutions face increasing pressure both at home and from other African countries which send students there.
Against this background, he noted, Unam is advised to also look west, to universities in Ghana and Nigeria for placement of pre-engineering students.
This is important as a way to diversify the training of the people and to enhance South-South cooperation in human resource development through staff and student exchanges and joint research collaboration.
Sketching the background to the establishment of the Faculty of Engineering and information Technology at Ongwediva, Unam Vice-Chancellor Professor Lazarus Hangula said the ground-breaking ceremony marks a gigantic step and a leap forward for Namibia as a developing country. This is so because no country is ever able to develop and prosper without embracing engineering and technology.
In his view, engineering is a discipline that empowers people to conquer nature and space, exploit natural resources and add value to them. With engineering, people reduce distances, bridge hurdles, defeat difficulties, create new products and wealth, build facilities and systems and improve the living conditions of individuals, communities and the entire nation.
For the past nine years, Unam has been involved in planning to ensure that Namibia has adequate human resources in various fields of engineering and information technology.
In 1998, Unam conducted a needs assessment for engineers in Namibia. Also in 1998, Unam organised a national stakeholders’ workshop on the training of engineers and information technology specialists.
In 1999, Unam entered negotiation towards cooperation arrangements with the universities of Cape Town, Witwatersrand and Pretoria in South Africa, as well as the University of Botswana for an annual transfer of between 25 to 30 Namibian engineering students who went through a Unam pre-engineering programme.
A year later, Unam launched a two-year pre-engineering programme, after which Namibian students would be sent to southern African universities for further studies. So far, more than 60 Namibian civil, electrical, mechanical, metallurgical, mining and professional engineers have been trained through such collaboration and are now working in government ministries, NamPower, NamWater, NamDeb, Scorpion Zinc, Rǟ