By Joe-Chintha Garises
KEETMANSHOOP, Sept. 1 — The University of Namibia celebrated its 30th anniversary on 31 August 2022.
The university now has 12 campuses nationally. The Southern campus also held its celebrations.
During his congratulatory remarks, Salomon April governor of the Hardap region said: “Human beings will not attain full heights if they don’t obtain education”.
He further said education is the only thing that can give you the height that you need to compete.
One should study to contribute meaningfully to the pool of knowledge, he said.
The southern campus that only started with 78 students now has more than 1 000 students.
“Unam Southern Campus is a beacon of hope, prosperity and growth for the southern region and the Namibian nation at large.
“Since its establishment in 2014, the campus fast became a truly viable alternative to many new and returning students,” Aletha Fredrick //Kharas governor said upon delivering her keynote address.
Fredrick added that the Southern Campus, as a key resource, has the highest concentration of intellectual capital in the region with 10 PhD and 24 Masters’ Degrees.
Southern Campus is the leading producer of knowledge in the //Kharas region, having published 32 scholarly works of which eight were in internationally accredited peer-reviewed publications, she said.
These contributions to knowledge are geared towards translating research into marketable products as well as generating solutions to the developmental challenges experienced as a country and globally Frederick said.
The UNAM Southern Campus is linked with the Leibniz Association through the Institute for New Materials (INM) based at the University of Saarland Germany.
The second campus is currently still under construction and is in phase one. The campus will have six lecture halls, three laboratories, boardrooms and offices for lectures.
“The Southern Campus and the //Kharas regional authorities can pat themselves on the back with the construction of the Lecture Block Phase 1 to the tune of N$83 million despite all the impediments such as the global economic recession and the COVID 19 pandemic that had the potential to collapse the project.
“The project is nearing its completion and we hope to receive invitations this year still to the inauguration of the new state-of-the-art building, that consists of 3x Geoscience Laboratories, 6x lecture halls with 50-120 seat capacity, offices, board rooms and student lobbies,” Fredrick said.
However, ensuring admission to higher education seems to be the biggest challenge, particularly for the young people of the region, she said.
