Namibia’s 2024 National Graduate Survey, published this year, reveals an uncomfortable contradiction. Among respondents from the 2019–2021 cohorts who answered the employment question, 34% reported being unemployed. Meanwhile, the government is expanding access through subsidised tertiary education, which will produce more graduates in the coming years. The challenge is to match this investment in qualifications with opportunities to expand employment. Namibia must align university curriculum transformation with investment in industries able to employ graduates and commercialise their knowledge.
The lion’s share
The education sector receives the largest share of the government’s budget. The 2026/27 budget allocates N$28 billion to education, innovation, arts and culture, including N$2.8 billion for subsidised tertiary education and measures to alleviate school congestion. These commitments ease tuition costs, but unemployment prolongs household dependence and delays tax contributions. Underemployment wastes expertise, while financial barriers to postgraduate study restrict academic progression. Namibia should therefore ensure that its significant investment in education yields stronger economic returns.
The education system equips engineers to maintain machinery components; it should increasingly prepare them to design, create, and innovate. Curriculum transformation can contribute to a manufacturing economy rather than a predominantly consumption-based one, advancing the industrialisation aspirations of Vision 2030. Namibia needs an education system that serves existing industry while helping new manufacturing industries emerge to export finished products. Repair and maintenance enterprises remain important, but upgrading selected industries towards component production offers a practical starting point, supported by feasibility studies.
Lessons from abroad
South Korea demonstrates the value of processing capacity. Despite depending almost entirely on imported crude, the country developed major refineries and exports petroleum products. Its engineering expertise and industrial investment created value from imported raw materials. Namibia should similarly assess commercially viable opportunities to add value to its minerals before export, creating employment and contributing to gross domestic product (GDP).
Singapore offers a complementary lesson in coordinated development. Its leaders combined export manufacturing, foreign investment, infrastructure and technical education, alongside sustained action against corruption. This industrial transformation required strategic planning and implementation over time. Namibia should strengthen coordination among training, investment and accountable governance, while recognising differences in geography, market access and national capacity.
As colleges, training centres and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions aspire to university status, Namibia must safeguard the technical and vocational skills that underpin industrialisation in economies such as Germany and China. Academic advancement should complement, rather than displace, these essential skills.
Shared responsibility
Namibia’s National Work Integrated Learning Policy, launched in March 2026, provides a framework for shared responsibility. Workplace learning brings employers into skills development before graduation. Concerns about graduate readiness should therefore prompt commitments to host, mentor and assess students. Implementation should secure binding placement agreements with participating employers, linking workplace tasks to qualification requirements. Universities and industry must jointly demonstrate whether these arrangements improve competence and employment outcomes. Regular assessment would ensure that workplace learning becomes meaningful professional preparation rather than merely a graduation requirement.
Curriculum transformation should begin with a production problem. For example, a food processor seeking to extend product shelf life could help lecturers identify relevant laboratory, packaging, and quality-control skills. Lecturers would redesign assessments, students would undertake supervised projects, and employers would assess performance against agreed standards. Universities should then track employment and job relevance. This approach connects classroom achievement with industry needs while preserving scientific foundations and critical thinking.
Lecturers also need ongoing workplace exposure. Universities should require an annual one-month intensive, discipline-relevant attachment with agreed professional objectives. A lecturer observing production faults should return with revised practical exercises and research questions. Departments should assess the resulting changes to teaching, rather than attendance alone. Such attachments would support reciprocal learning and research partnerships between universities and industry.
A manufacturer seeking a replacement pump component could commission for university design and laboratory testing, followed by prototype development, factory trials, certification, and sales. Contracts should allocate costs, intellectual property, and commercial responsibilities. Similar partnerships should explore food processing, water technology, and mineral beneficiation. The government could establish a funding pool linking research to viable production and graduate enterprises.
Exporting knowledge alongside goods
Questions about whether Namibian industries are ready to expand beyond importing support phased investment, with universities and industry testing products before committing to factory production. Shared testing facilities and export partnerships could spread costs. Namibia should also develop regional sales of engineering design, software and specialist training. Exporting knowledge alongside processed goods broadens opportunities without requiring every graduate to establish a manufacturing business.
Finally, entrepreneurial skills must be matched with opportunities, start-up capital, and ongoing training. Graduates need practical pathways to establish sustainable businesses, not merely encouragement to become entrepreneurs. By aligning education, workplace learning, industrial investment, and commercialisation, Namibia can build an economy that puts graduates’ knowledge to work for national development.
*Dr Colen Tuaundu is the Director of Academic Development and Support at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust). The opinions expressed in this piece are his own and do not represent the views of his employer.
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