By Dr Etuna Simon
The other day, I had an interesting conversation with my friend who is a professor at a local university.
She told me something that stayed with me.
Every year, she watches thousands of young people graduate. Families gather. Gowns are worn. Photographs are taken. Degrees are conferred, and one by one, the graduates walk across the stage.
They carry big expectations. Not just their own. Their families’ too. And the country’s.
Then she said something that made me pause.
If universities are truly preparing these graduates for the world of work, she said, industry cannot just show up on graduation day. It cannot just clap, take pictures, and leave.
Industry must be there earlier. Much earlier.
It needs a seat at the curriculum table, she said. Not just at the graduation ceremony.
Then comes the difficult part.
The graduate enters the labour market and discovers that having a qualification and being ready for the workplace are not always the same thing. Employers sometimes complain that graduates lack practical experience, workplace confidence, digital competencies, communication skills or the ability to translate theory into practice.
Universities, on the other hand, may rightly point out that their responsibility is broader than simply training employees for particular companies. Higher education must develop thinkers, researchers, professionals, innovators and citizens capable of adapting throughout their careers.
Both arguments contain truth.
But somewhere between the lecture hall and the workplace lies a gap that Namibia can no longer afford to ignore. That gap can be narrowed through stronger, systematic and continuous collaboration between universities and industry.
The curriculum cannot be developed behind closed doors.
A university curriculum should never be determined entirely by employers. Universities have an intellectual and social mandate that extends beyond immediate labour-market demands. But neither should academic programmes be developed almost entirely within university walls and only presented to industry when they are already complete.
If we are designing a programme in engineering, information technology, agriculture, health, business, education, logistics or renewable energy, surely the organisations working in those sectors should help us understand how those fields are changing. What equipment are they using? Which skills are becoming obsolete, and which new occupations are emerging? What competencies are consistently missing among new graduates? What will the industry need five or ten years from now? These are curriculum questions, and increasingly, they cannot be answered by universities alone.
Namibia’s Sixth National Development Plan (NDP6) recognises precisely this challenge. NDP6 identifies strengthening industry-higher education partnerships as a strategy for improving higher education responsiveness and sets a target of increasing the graduate employment rate from 66% to 74% by 2030. That is an important policy signal. Graduate employability cannot simply be measured after students leave university. It must be designed into the educational experience from the beginning.
Industry should not meet students for the first time when they apply for jobs.
Too often, the relationship between universities and employers begins too late. Students complete three or four years of study and only encounter the realities of their profession during a short internship, or worse, after graduation. By then, some of the gaps are already visible.
Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) provides one mechanism for changing this.
When properly designed, WIL is not simply about sending a student to a company for several weeks and asking someone to sign a logbook. It should be an extension of the curriculum.
Students should encounter real problems, professional expectations, technologies, workplace cultures and decision-making environments. Industry mentors should understand what students are expected to learn. Universities should monitor the experience. And importantly, what employers observe during those placements should feed back into curriculum improvement.
There are already encouraging examples in Namibia.
The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) has formalised agreements with OTESA Civil Engineering and with Afrox, giving students structured placements that span civil engineering, project management, quantity surveying, health and safety, procurement, finance, human resources, mentorship and curriculum support, jointly supervised by company staff and university lecturers.
The University of Namibia has signed a similar agreement with the Ministry of Health and Social Services, built on the principle, in the Minister’s own words, that “the lecture room must inform the hospital setting, and the hospital setting must inform the lecture room.”
Welwitchia University’s Faculty of Law, Commerce and Education has partnered with the Namibian Revolutionary Transport and Manufacturing Union, placing law students directly into dispute resolution, arbitration and labour rights work as part of their training.
The International University of Management has partnered with the Namibia Nature Foundation to strengthen research, training and conservation-linked collaboration, extending its environmental and sustainability sciences programmes into practical fieldwork.
These examples demonstrate something important: university-industry collaboration is most valuable when it extends beyond merely finding internship spaces. It should influence the entire learning ecosystem.
We must prepare for industries that are still emerging.
This conversation becomes even more urgent when we consider Namibia’s changing economy. Green hydrogen, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, digital finance, automation and new forms of agricultural technology are developing rapidly. We cannot wait for these industries to mature and then ask universities to start preparing people for them. By then, we will already be behind.
Consider green hydrogen. Namibia is investing considerable national ambition in becoming a participant in the emerging green hydrogen economy. But infrastructure and investment alone cannot build an industry. People do. Engineers, technicians, researchers, environmental specialists, project managers, data professionals, artisans, safety specialists and entrepreneurs will all be required. This is where collaboration becomes strategic.
NUST’s IGNITE Green Hydrogen project, for example, brings together the university with companies including Hyphen Hydrogen Energy and Zhero, as well as NamWater and the Namibia Institute of Mining and Technology. The initiative is specifically designed to align training with actual employment opportunities in the emerging green hydrogen economy and related occupations.
That model is worth paying attention to. Instead of a university saying, we think this is what industry may need, industry and education providers work together to determine the competencies required and build appropriate training pathways. That is how skills ecosystems should operate.
Collaboration must go beyond advisory meetings.
There is, however, an important caution. We must not reduce university-industry collaboration to Memoranda of Understanding, ceremonial signing events and occasional stakeholder meetings. An MoU is not collaboration. It is an intention to collaborate. The real test is what happens afterwards.
Are companies participating in curriculum advisory committees? Are industry experts contributing to teaching, and are lecturers spending time in contemporary workplaces to understand emerging technologies? Are employers providing structured feedback about graduate performance, and are universities updating programmes when the evidence demands it?
Those are more meaningful indicators of partnership. We need to move from event-based engagement to institutionalised collaboration. Every professionally oriented academic programme should have mechanisms through which industry feedback is continuously collected, analysed and incorporated into programme review. Industry advisory boards should not exist merely on paper. They should be active partners in keeping curricula relevant.
Industry also has responsibilities.
It is easy to place the entire burden on universities. When graduates struggle in the workplace, employers sometimes say: “Universities are not producing what we need.” But industry must also ask: what are we contributing to the development of the graduates we say we need? Companies cannot demand experienced graduates while refusing to provide internships because students “do not have experience.” Someone must provide the experience.
Industry should invest in internship programmes, mentorship, graduate development, research partnerships, scholarships, laboratories and equipment where possible. Professionals should participate in guest lectures and curriculum advisory processes. Companies should communicate future skills requirements before shortages become crises, and where expensive technologies are changing rapidly, industry can help expose lecturers and students to systems that universities may not yet be able to purchase.
The responsibility must therefore be shared. Universities provide disciplinary knowledge, research capacity, intellectual independence and educational expertise. Industry contributes contemporary workplace knowledge, technological exposure, practical problems and an understanding of changing occupational requirements. Government creates the policy and regulatory environment. When those three actors cooperate effectively, the result can be a powerful national innovation system.
Bring industry problems into the classroom.
There is another opportunity Namibia should explore much more aggressively. Instead of students always solving hypothetical textbook problems, why not allow them to work on genuine Namibian industry challenges? A logistics company could present a transportation optimisation problem to data science students. A municipality could challenge engineering students to develop solutions for water losses. An agricultural company could work with students on precision agriculture. A hospital could partner with technology students to improve digital patient-management systems, subject to appropriate ethical and privacy safeguards.
These projects would benefit everyone. Students gain authentic problem-solving experience. Lecturers remain connected to evolving professional practice. Companies gain access to fresh ideas and university research capacity. And universities become active contributors to economic development rather than institutions operating at the margins of it.
Research itself should increasingly form part of this relationship. Namibia does not need research only for publication. We need research that helps our industries become more productive, sustainable, competitive and innovative.
Not every graduate should be prepared only to become an employee.
There is one final dimension that deserves attention. Aligning programmes with industry needs should not mean preparing every student to look for a job. We must also prepare graduates to create economic activity. Industry collaboration can expose students to business models, supply chains, unmet market needs and real operational challenges. That exposure can produce entrepreneurs.
A mechanical engineering graduate might identify a locally manufacturable component currently being imported. An agriculture graduate might develop a digital service for farmers. An IT graduate could build software solving a Namibian business problem. That is also employability.
The strongest university-industry relationship should therefore not merely ask how we prepare graduates for available jobs. It should also ask how we prepare graduates to create the industries and jobs Namibia does not yet have.
The qualification must remain alive.
An academic programme should never be treated as a finished product. The moment a curriculum is approved is not the moment we stop asking questions. Industries change. Technology changes. Professions change. National priorities change. And therefore, curricula must remain alive. This does not mean universities should chase every short-lived labour-market trend. Higher education must continue teaching foundational knowledge, critical thinking, ethics, research, creativity and intellectual independence.
These competencies often endure long after particular technologies become obsolete. The goal is balance. Universities must resist becoming training departments for individual companies. But they must equally resist becoming academically isolated environments producing qualifications disconnected from economic and social realities.
Namibia needs graduates who can think and do. Graduates who understand theory and can apply it. Graduates prepared for today’s workplace and capable of adapting to tomorrow’s.
Achieving that will require industry to enter the university before graduation day, and universities to enter industry before curriculum review day.
Because the question should no longer be whether universities and industry need each other. They already do. The more important question is whether we are collaborating early enough, deeply enough and consistently enough to prepare Namibians for the economy we are trying to build. We cannot build tomorrow’s workforce with yesterday’s curriculum. And we certainly cannot design tomorrow’s curriculum without talking to the people who are helping build tomorrow’s economy.
*Dr Etuna Simon is a researcher, strategist and writer with a keen interest in education, innovation, artificial intelligence and national development. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author. She can be reached at etunasimon@icloud.com
