22 Mar 2021

The partnership between Botho University and Huawei Technology has reportedly come at the right time to assist the institution to deliver its mandate amid resultant COVID-19 challenges.

Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe, hailed the partnership during the recent official launch of Huawei Academy at the university. 

The launch followed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the university and the company early last year.

Dr Letsholathebe said through the MoU, Huawei committed to establishing its Information and Communication Technology Academy programmes within the  university.

He said the partnership would push the realisation of e-education whose intention was to provide direction and guidance for strengthening capacities and capabilities to deliver online learning.

As COVID-19 was rapidly changing into an unprecedented health, economic, sociocultural and geographical crisis, he noted, its impact had also been felt in the education sector such as disruption of learning.

“The use of online learning has taken precedence in order for institutions to stay afloat in the space of training for a knowledge based economy and increase access to off campus online teaching and learning, amidst the pandemic challenges,” he said.

He expressed gratitude to Huawei Technology for providing fully equipped laboratories for the new academy and training materials for various courses at the cost of P350 000.

Minister Letsholathebe said he was hopeful that through the laboratories, the university would train more than 200 students per year in the latest technologies such as routing, switching, cloud computing 5G technology and storage and artificial intelligence.

He further said  students with interest in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) would have a chance to enroll for courses at Huawei Academy for free.

Multiple creative learning resources such as books, lab guides, e-learning, online tests and other simulation tools would be availed, he said.

He said Huawei Technology had already trained the university’s Faculty of Engineering and Technology staff with up to date technologies adding that the graduates were now Huawei Academy certified instructors.

The partnership would go a long way in assisting government in employment creation for the youth, who would in turn, create job opportunities for their fellows, thus contributing immensely towards economic diversification, he said.

In his welcome remarks, the university’s vice chancellor and communication director, Mr Ravi Srinivasan, described the partnership as a step towards breaking the bottleneck of industry and education integration in the cultivation of talent.

He expressed confidence that the partnership would accelerate scientific and technological innovation that would align the university with industry.

Mr Srinivasan said he was hopeful that Huawei Academy would provide more technical and skillful talent, advanced technologies and extra support to innovation and entrepreneurship. ENDS