By William Mbangula
OSHAKATI
Institutions of higher learning have been urged to play a key role in human capacity-building and research in order to help the country achieve Vision 2030.
The Minister of Education, Nangolo Mbumba, made this call in a speech delivered on his behalf by the Deputy Director of Education in Oshana Region, Immanuel Aipanda, at the Unam Northern Campus research conference yesterday.
The minister said: “As members of institutions of higher learning, you should take up this challenge and reflect on the many policies, studies as well as recommendations from various national forums and conduct researches that can guide and chart a course towards our chosen destination, namely Vision 2030. The onus is on you as academicians to work on those recommendations and advise government accordingly.”
The minister said he would be particularly interested to know how the conference could guide the nation on the best possible ways of building the requisite human capital, infrastructure development, science, technology and innovation, enhancing planning and implementation capacities, which were critical requisites for the full implementation of Vision 2030.
The minister said Namibia would not be able to achieve some of the Vision 2030 goals, hence there was a need for the conference and many other research efforts to develop the capacity of the nation and the community at large.
He said: “Vision 2030 seeks to position Namibia in the future within a defined development context. That is, for Namibia to be in the ranks of the newly-industrialized countries, and for this picture to emerge there can be no more powerful engine to drive the Namibian nation and economy towards growth, competitive excellence and long-range success, stability and peace than a well-developed, worthwhile, achievable and widely-shared vision.
“This process helps to direct and align citizens’ actions and efforts with the vision by defining and explaining what the future looks like and spelling out the required attributes, attitudes, skills, resources, commitments and behaviour that are consistent with the realization of the desired national future.”
Held since 1998, the event was also addressed by Unam Pro Vice-Chancellor: Academic Affairs and Research Professor Osmund Mwandemele who lauded the conference that it will improve the opportunity for Unam and other stakeholders in research to get in touch with other researchers and also to generate new ideas for research and embark on possible collaborative activities. It is by joining forces, he noted, that researchers can increase the quality of research efforts while at the same time making available research findings for socio-economic development.
Said the Pro Vice-Chancellor: “I would like to encourage all Unam staff to increase their research and publication output. As an institution of higher learning, we are expected to be at the forefront of research in Namibia and southern Africa.
“I also want to encourage you to publish your research findings not only in conference proceedings but to be bold and send them for publication in reputable refereed journals. The public would also benefit if research information and exciting findings can also be presented in the local newspapers in a simplified language so that people out there appreciate what their national University is doing in terms of generating new knowledge and contributions to the country’s national socio-economic development.”