11 Feb 2018

Newly appointed University of Botswana (UB) Vice Chancellor has promised to turn around the institution into a student-centered university and provide a platform for young people to thrive.

Briefing the media on UB’s achievements so far and what his plans are for the country’s oldest and revered institutions of higher learning, Prof. David Norris said young people were extremely innovative, but they were not given enough platforms to excel.

“We have agreements with various institutions around the world such as Harvard and it is time we take advantage of these to advance our vision and mandate of this university,” he said, adding that exchange programmes would be a great step in the right direction.

He also indicated that they were looking to strengthen lifelong programmes and increase access to such programmes.

Prof. Norris further said it was worrying that UB’s pass rate was 35 per cent and would be looking at ways to improve it and also attract more enrollment from undergraduates since numbers had dropped.

“We should also never forget the role that this institution has played in human capital development in our country and we continue to strive to do more,” he said, further indicating that UB offered a couple of professional short courses such as Public Administration, Budgeting and Procurement, among others.

Prof. Norris said that they had eight faculties with 55 academic divisions that offered a huge spectrum of programmes.

He noted that as management of UB they had taken into consideration that times had changed, hence they also offered new programmes such as Masters in Entrepreneurship and Geo Special Sciences.

“The most important thing is that all these programmes are accredited,” he said.

Speaking on research, Prof. Norris said the institution was keen on research.

“I would also like to commend the Okavango Research Institute for raising P16million and the UB School of Medicine also raised P11million from external sources for purposes of research,” said Prof. Norris, adding that it should encourage others to follow suit.

He also commended the School of Medicine for having graduated 24 specialists so far since inception. He also said the faculty of science needed to be commended for coming up with a Lumpy Skin vaccine.

“We are in the process of patenting it and what is great about the vaccine is that it does not need to be refrigerated. We also have a bio-fuel innovation that was a collaboration between us and the Japanese,” he said.

He indicated that UB was serious when about alternative energy and there was a 20kw power station in Mokolodi village that powers, amongst others, the clinic  and kgotla.

He also vowed to call stakeholders/industry leaders in the next two weeks to engage them and have their input with regards to the research that the university can undertake.

“Research should be informed by societal issues and what better way to insync with one another,” he said.

He said UB needed to improve its research.

“Look at our post graduate programme and the number of students we have. We have 2000 students and this is a small number, we need to double these figures. We need research to lead to product development that can be commercialised and we need to link better with industries to do this,” he continued.

He also touched on the issue of the UB Convention Centre and rumours that some people were tussling with UB to control it.

“I am not aware of anyone tussling with UB to take control of the UB Convention Centre. What I can tell you is that it belongs to UB and we recently acquired a commercial licence to operate it so know it is all systems go for us on that front,” he concluded.

Prof. Norris also went on a tour of the campus indoor sport centre, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, multi-disciplinary block 247, health sciences facilities and conference centre. Ends