Reflections from the Zambezi

Group Photo of Symposium Delegates Introduction In the last week of August 2016, I attended a Vocational Education and Training Development Symposium at the Namibia University of Science and Technology in Windhoek, Namibia. The Symposium organised by the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the University of Röstock, Germany was supported by the Volkswagen (VW) Foundation. The Symposium brought together representatives from 16 countries to establish networks for increased opportunities for research and collaboration between VET practitioners. The symposium was held under the theme “ Current situation and development of further education research in Vocational Education and Training in Sub-Saharan Africa ”.   Objective of Symposium The main objective of the Symposium was to develop a framework for the establishment of a training system for Vocational Education and Training (VET) at postgraduate level in Sub-Saharan African universities. Participan...

After working on my dissertation Challenges and Enablers of eLearning Policy Implementation in Vocational Colleges in Zambia for almost 3 years at the University of Cape Town, it was time to graduate on 9th June 2016. The graduation was the biggest at UCT due to the Faculty of Humanities being the larges faculty at the varsity. I was accompanied to the graduation by my wife Judith and first born daughter Twalumba. We left Lusaka on 6 June 2016 at 09 00 hours by a Johannesburg bound bus. The bus passed through Zimbabwe where we had a taste of an overzealous cop who slapped a heavy fine on the bus driver for an imaginary fault on the bus. The back and forth negotiations set us back by 45 minutes with a further 2 hour delay on the Beitbridge border due to lengthy border formalities. It was my first time to use this border. I experienced for myself why many complain about the very lengthy border formalities.  We arrived in Johannesburg at 11 00 hrs the following day where we ...