Ramouna Shipunda
The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) on Friday reported progress achieved over the last few years when the institution’s management visited State House.
With the report providing a synoptic view of the present and future of the university, it effectively covers the pre-and post-pandemic period as well as highlights the institution’s key contributions towards national development.
It furthermore covers the institution’s commitment to good corporate governance, and displays the dynamic and international staff and student profile, also demonstrating the key strategic responses such as restructuring into a leaner and more efficient staff complement to address financial sustainability.
“More importantly, the report details key contributions to national development. It further demonstrates that during the period under review, NUST continued to make significant progress towards national imperatives, despite the threat of the global pandemic,’’ said vice chancellor Erold Naomab.
Formerly known as the Polytechnic of Namibia, NUST was renamed in 2015. Its vision is to be a premier technological university known for knowledge-creation, innovation and entrepreneurship, with a mission to be an engaged and responsive university which is meeting the needs of stakeholders through excellent education, applied research, innovation and services.
Through its qualifications’ mix approach, it aims to propel the country to achieve various milestones with prioritising certain areas for development such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, advanced web technologies, and big data analytics, using high-performance computing and mining engineering.
Over the last three years, a strained global economy resulted in an over-reliance on the government subsidy to fund NUST’s operations. For the same reason, the government subsidy has proven to be unpredictable and declining. In the current fiscal year alone, NUST’s government subsidy was reduced by 7%, from N$488 million in 2021 to N$455 million this year.
President Hage Geingob was delighted that the institution is focused on skills-building, and that it is the right direction to go.
He encouraged the institution to continue so as to curb the high rate of unemployment, and for science students to be able to create their own jobs.
“Across the surface of all its commitments, NUST remains driven to participate in international collaborations that are geared towards solving regional and global challenges, without abdicating its responsibility to make a difference in the lives of Namibian communities,’’ said Naomab.