IUM education builds Namibia
- DBN finance for IUM campus builds eduaction capacity



Since opening its doors in 1994, the International University of Management (IUM) has grown to become a respected tertiary education institution in Namibia. The Development Bank of Namibia's (DBN) finance for its new, larger campus, has been instrumental in ensuring that it can keep pace with the demand for its services.

The goal of IUM is to equip its students with skills needed for the job market. This in turn is expected to empower its graduates to become job creators and creators of wealth.

"Education is the key; it changes lives, it gives people the independence to be themselves and to be the best that they can be. Everybody has the potential to be the best, but without guidance, without skills and without communication tools, potential alone will not serve you, you will remain in one place," says IUM Vice Chancellor, Virginia Namwandi.

The verity of Virginia Namwandi's words is underscored by the experience of herself and her husband, Dr David Namwandi.

Known as the Institute of Higher Education when it opened in 1994, it started with one student in the home of Virginia and David Namwandi, who were also its sole employees. Their objective was to address the deficit of skilled employees by educating and imparting work skills to Namibians.



With the wheels in motion, before long, the lone student asked the Namwandis whether some of her colleagues could also attend classes. In no time enrolments began to gather impetus, growing from four to eight. Needing a larger facility, the Namwandis moved their activities into the centre of Windhoek. This first move allowed them to enrol yet more students.

Says Virginia Namwandi, "We soon realised that apart from the knowledge and skills that we were imparting, the market required that students have a paper to show. It was at that point that we thought of looking around in order to partner with institutions that could allow us to offer their programmes on an accreditation basis."

After approaching numerous international institutions and professional bodies, IUM began to offer accredited programmes. However, after a while this proved unsatisfactory, as most of the programmes were not designed for the local market, and it was found that students could not relate to the programmes.

"Case studies used European or American scenarios, and there were none depicting Namibian situations. We decided to develop our own programmes using Namibian case studies, with the help of some international institutions that we had partnered with," says Namwandi.

The Namwandis developed a strategic plan and, in 2002, the Institute of Higher Learning became the IUM, launched and registered as a Section 21 Company. This means it has no shareholding and is run by a Governing Council.

Namwandi states this was risky, but the right thing to do. "For us, it is not about the money, it is about sharing and giving our service to Namibians," she reasons.

Talking about the new campus, Namwandi says, "At the city campus the largest classroom could only hold about a 100 students, so 300 students had to be broken into three groups, which added to the workload of the lecturer. Now with the new campus you can fit all the students in one hall at a time. If all the classrooms are full, we can sit about 1,000 students at a time and the Auditorium alone can also fit about a 1,000. We have four to five different sessions in a day, which means we can handle a lot more students than we could in the past," she adds.

In the past decade, 3,000 students graduated, and IUM is currently providing education for close to 6,000 students.

IUM currently employs a total of 168 people, composed of 86 women and 82 men. It offers 33 programmes accredited by the Namibia Qualifications Authority (NQA) and, in a decade, has grown from one to four branches in Windhoek, Ongwediva, Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. This is apart from offering distance studies. IUM also has a presence in Malawi and Botswana and is engaged in discussion with South Africa partners. Looking ahead, she hopes to see IUM become a center of excellence in management and information technology communication (ITC) and to have branches in all regions, particularly in the south and north-east of the country.

Vice Chancellor Namwandi concludes, "Education is everything and not one institution can do it alone. If you go to other countries, even in Africa, they have many private universities and public universities. The more institutions imparting skills and knowledge we have, the more people would be employable or enabled to start their own businesses."