Connecting students and the industry

NUST pilots employability improvement programme
The programme undertakes to revive skills employees in various industries have forgotten to ensure companies remain competitive.
Jeanette Diergaardt
The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) has launched a new employability improvement pilot programme with Meatco.

The programme, which was launched on 14 April, undertakes to revive skills employees in various industries have forgotten to ensure companies remain competitive. Furthermore, it looks to inspire innovation within companies as employees need to constantly grow, Petrina Batholmeus, the work-integrated learning industry liaison coordinator at NUST, said.

In future, the programme strives to expand to more companies after receiving feedback. One of its goals are to receive feedback from the industry to further develop the work-integrated learning module at the university.

“We link the industries with NUST so that the graduates are work-ready,” Batholmeus said.

The work-integrated learning module is compulsory for all students at the university. Through the pilot project, NUST hopes to anticipate changes to improve the course. By understanding the needs of industries, the programme will equip the institution with the know-how on how to better prepare career-ready students in future.

According to Jonas Illeka, the senior human capital manager at Meatco, the initiative ties in with their capacity-building strategy.

“Meatco has a five-year strategic plan, and our role as human capital is to capacitate people to be able to execute our strategic goals. We also rolled out a performance management system where we set clear goals for every department,” he said.

According to Dalicia Olivier, the performance management practitioner at Meatco, the programme resembled a team-building initiative.

As part of the manufacturing industry, the material learnt was relevant to the various roles in the company.

“Although the exercise was truck assembly, you can apply it to various key industries,” she said.

One of the assignments the employees were tasked with was to build a car with material provided by NUST. The car had to be assembled by every individual first. Afterwards, employees were instructed to work together as a team to complete the task.