THE University of Namibia (Unam) Oshakati campus yesterday launched the master of development studies degree programme that starts this year.
This multi-disciplinary programme will provide advanced education and research opportunities to students who want to contribute to the effective creation and implementation of development frameworks.
The programme is aimed at professionals in government, NGOs and the private sector who require capacity-building and further enhancement of their existing skills in the development field.
Addressing journalists during a briefing at the Oshakati campus, Paschal Mihyo said the new degree would help create African missionaries.
“Africa has had a lot of ‘missionaries’ from other countries, and these are the missionaries who have influenced our history, our development and our under-development and limited development.
“We need African missionaries who will influence development processes in Namibia, Africa and the world. We need to create African missionaries who also will influence developments on other continents in favour of Africa, and Namibia in particular,” he stated.
Mihyo expressed dissatisfaction that African education systems prepare Africans to manage but not solve African problems.
He noted that courses on development studies run in the UK, US, and Europe are the ones which produce most of the experts brought by the UN and other agencies to help Africa (Namibia) to “tell us what we are, and how to solve our problems. Our experts are missing from action”.
Unfortunately, Mihyo said, Africa and Namibia specifically still produce experts who dig so deep into their disciplines that they lose contact with the surface.
“Such experts look ignorant when issues requiring cross-disciplinary knowledge surface at international or regional conferences, or international negotiations.
“They feel hopeless when asked to contribute to cross-cutting issues such as food security, gender equality, climate change and health problems from their disciplinary perspectives,” he added.
Mihyo then took a swipe at unemployed Namibians, and urged them to stop begging the government for jobs, but instead to look for solutions to create employment for themselves and others. Namibia’s unemployment rate now sits at 34%.
Saara Niitenge is currently enrolled for the three-year course – the first two years are for modules, with a thesis to be submitted in the final year of study.
Niitenge told that the course will guide her into helping the country achieve its UN sustainable development goals, and she hopes to take up a career at one of the international organisations where Namibia is under-represented.
Northern businessmen pledged support to the university by offering to lecture students on how to become “good business people”.
The programme, which received 400 applications but could only select 35, received over N$2 million from business people and the Development Bank of Namibia.
