By Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
WINDHOEK – Prime Minister Dr Hage Geingob officially opened the School of Health and Applied Sciences building of the Polytechnic of Namibia on Friday.
The school was constructed at a cost of N$200 million, which was provided by government.
Addressing an audience of mainly first-year students, university staff and invited guests Geingob said he felt the well-designed state-of-the-art building. which will be used for teaching, learning and research, would grow in student enrolment at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The PM said already hundreds of students were using the facility and illuminating the way for future generations, adding that this was surely in line with the new mandate of the proposed Namibia University of Science and Technology.
“In this way the capacity of the nation to contribute to finding solutions to some of the pressing challenges will be enhanced,” he said.
“There is no reason why Namibians cannot be role-players in science and technology and why we cannot drive innovations locally, regionally and internationally,” he said, adding: “We cannot remain at the margins of technological development, and thus we must attend to the critical size of human resources and infrastructure,” which is necessary for development.
He said the government recognises the critical importance of local institutions and specialists being able to identify, adapt, and effectively use scientific and technological achievements and thereby advance socio-economic development.
On his part, Polytechnic Rector, Dr Tjama Tjivikua, said Namibia has to become a more aspirational society and thus the technological university needs to engender and strengthen innovation and long-term competitiveness.
He said the university must become Namibia’s foremost partner for knowledge and technology transfer, an incubator for entrepreneurs and inventors and a geographic location for the next frontiers for innovations.
The building comprises 18 laboratories, 15 lecture rooms, a double-storey auditorium for 288 people, two IT laboratories, three post-graduate research laboratories, 97 offices, nine meeting rooms, one video conference boardroom, 26 storerooms, six resource rooms and a fire station.