The Signing Ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding between the NCHE and Namibia Statistics Agency

Wednesday, 23. November 2016

MoU between NCHE and NSA signed

Statement By Mocks Shivute, Executive Director Of The National Council For Higher Education Secretariat, At The Occassion Of The Signing Ceremony Of The Memorandum Of Understanding Between The NCHE And Namibia Statistics Agency, 23 November 2016, Windhoek

The Director of the ProgrammeThe Statistician General, Mr. Alex ShimwafeniOfficials from the Namibia Statistics Agency

ColleaguesMembers of the Media FraternityLadies and gentlemen

I want to extend a warm welcome to everyone present here today and to thank you for having accepted our invitation.

Today NCHE signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the Namibia Statistics Agency, to set the foundation of sharing and disseminating statistical data on higher education.

Like other countries, Namibia requires data to plan and formulate policies. Higher education statistics is important for employment planning, curriculum development and for guiding students in their choice of career field.

The Higher Education Act, Act 26 of 2006 mandates NCHE to, among others, promote the establishment of a coordinated higher education system; the access of students to higher education institutions; and quality assurance in higher education.

To this end, NCHE has developed the Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS), a tool to collect, process and disseminate data from the Higher Education Institutions. Through HEMIS, NCHE has so far released two annual statistical publications.

We are of the view that our data collection, management and dissemination capacity could be enhanced if we partner with the Namibia Statistics Agency. Ancient European scholars noted that “to see further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. In the same vein, an African parable goes on that: “If you want to walk fast walk alone but if you want to walk far, walk together!”. Surely, the Namibia Statistics Agency is our giant in the field of statistics and therefore we are compelled to partner with them to in order to enhance our capacity in the journey of reaching out to our stakeholders in terms of statistics.

The core activities under this Memorandum of Understanding include:

  1. Joint research, publications, seminars, workshops and conferences;
  2. Joint specialised training programmes for both institutions;
  3. Data exchange; and
  4. Sharing of expertise, based on best practices.

Needless to mention, this Memorandum of Understanding enhances domestication of the use of national capacities so as to reduce dependency on external expertise. This approach ties in very well with our national aspiration for Namibia to be developed by her human resources.

The use of local expertise will not only help cementing institutional memories, but it is also cost effective in terms of pooling of resources and timely response to technical challenges.

Mr. Shimwafeni, the NCHE Secretariat is committed to the implementation of this important Memorandum of Understanding. We will ensure that timely execution of activities as agreed upon.

On behalf of NCHE and the Secretariat, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to the Namibia Statistics Agency for agreeing to partner with us on this important subject of managing the higher education statistics.

With these remarks, I would like to invite the Statistician General, Mr. Shimwafeni to say a few words.

I Thank You!