(Posted on behalf of Tania Prinsloo from the University of Pretoria, South Africa)
To take advantage of the collaboration possibilities between different universities forming part of the ESEFA project, I visited the Polytechnic of Namibia on 6 August 2015. The main purpose of the visit was to firstly meet other ESEFA partners face-to-face, secondly to share ideas on how to present the ESEFA short course to students more innovatively, and lastly to establish a research group, paving the way for research outputs from both universities.
I met with Mr Josphat Mukabi, who is heading their ESEFA team, and later on met three of his colleagues, Mr Johnson Billawer, Me Hima Kotti and Me Gloria Tsoopara. The two key departments involved in their ESEFA roll-out are the Department of Informatics and the Department of Marketing and Logistics.
Up to now, they have presented one short course In April 2015, with a student enrolment of 65 students, of which 45 passed the final exam. They have another short course scheduled for the week of 24 to 28 August, and they expect approximately 50 students.
The Department of Informatics at the Polytechnic of Namibia is starting a new course in 2016 aimed at third year students called Enterprise Resource Planning where they are planning on incorporating the ESEFA course in the semester course. This is important for the University of Pretoria, as our main research focus currently is on looking at the student performance in terms of the short 5-day course compared to the ESEFA course incorporated in a semester course.
It was a fruitful visit, and I am sure that the contact session was beneficial for everyone.
Below is the photo of the four lecturers from the Polytechnic of Namibia, and myself, taken on their beautiful campus.