Tujoromajo Kasuto
The Namibia National Reinsurance Corporation, NamibRe Managing Director, Patty Karuaihe-Martin today handed over 690 Laptops and bags valued at over 3.3 million to NUST and UNAM and urged other corporates to invest in education, particularly in helping students have access to ICT equipment as this will assist them in their studies.
Karuaihe-Martin believes that providing access to education by investment in the sector is important to building a sustainable future for young people.
She emphasises that the donation is NamibRe’s commitment to supporting the education sector as a strategic pillar in the Corporate Social Investment of NamibRe Foundation that will be officially launched this year.
The good gesture comes in the midst of COVID-19 and as the 4th industrial revolution technologies emerged as a key driver of resilient supply chains, helping companies and education sector survive the pandemic.
For NamibRe, Karuaihe-Martin says, they are an organisation that has embraced and kept up with technology, making it easy for them to have been able to adopt to remote working in a relatively short time after the Government implemented lockdown measures as way of containing the spread of the pandemic.
Fanuel Kisting, NamibRe Board chairperson says, as a public enterprise, which takes its responsibilities as a good corporate citizen seriously, they have identified the need to bridge the gap and provide aid and assistance to students to be able to continue with their studies.
He says ‘’after consulting the Ministry of Education and both institutions (NUST and UNAM) we have decided to donate laptops to students who need these devices to enable them to continue with their tertiary education programmes’’.
Kisting notes that NamibRe’s support of the education sector is based on the belief that education is the greatest equaliser, hence, supporting this sector would have a longer positive impact (even beyond Covid-19) in promoting access to education for all Namibians.
‘’It is evident that severe learning losses and worsening inequalities in education have dire consequences on the performance of the Namibian economy. NUST and UNAM plays a vital role in providing human capital with the right skills and knowledge to various industries in the
Namibian economy,’’ he asserts. He concludes that the education sector experienced such a seismic shift in the execution of its mandate and needed to adapt to new ways of learning and communicating with students across the country.
“Students and lecturers had to operate from home and embrace remote learning. This shift came with difficulties and new challenges for students as they had to adapt to the “new normal” way of e-learning. Due to a lack of resources, such as computers and internet connectivity many students felt left behind on the journey of education,’’ he explains.
