Dear NUST Students and staff
08 April 2020
Re: COVID-19 MESSAGE TO STUDENTS AND STAFF MEASURE 8
The spread of COVID-19 across the world and here in Namibia is causing understandable concern
across the University community.
To begin with, I want to assure you that NUST Management is monitoring this situation closely and
are doing everything we can to protect our students, faculty and staff. Your health, safety and well-
being is our top priority.
Consequently, and in compliance with His Excellency the President of the Republic of Namibia Hon.
Hage Geingob’s instruction, the university effected a lockdown. I am happy to say we managed to
arrange transport for all our hostel students to their homes and all international students to their
respective countries so that they could be with their loved ones during this crisis.
Let me also take this opportunity to extend my hearty congratulations to those of you who have
completed their studies and are graduating this year. I would also like to reiterate to you that
graduation has not been cancelled, but postponed to the next available date, most likely in October.
This gives us all adequate time to prepare for this important occasion.
Also take note that your certificates will be available at NUST in late April as originally planned. You
are free to come and collect your degree parchment during this time (once lockdown has been lifted).
Those of you who prefer to receive their parchment through the post, please advise us as soon as
possible via this email: registrar@nust.na. If the lockdown measures are extended to cover the rest of
April, we will mail your degree parchment to the postal address on record. But, if you have moved
places, please advise the University of your new postal address immediately by using the email above.
I know you may be anxious about these rapid developments, but I encourage you to remain calm yet
vigilant. There have also been many discussions about moving teaching, learning and assessment
activities online. The University Management acknowledges that there are many challenges
associated with such a move. Some of these challenges have also been reiterated by our own Student
Representative Council (SRC) and some of the other student representative bodies in Namibia. We
need to be sensitive to these challenges before embarking fully on such an endeavour. These
challenges include (but are not limited to):
- Student and staff access to a reliable and affordable internet connection;
- Student and staff access to appropriate devices to access online learning such as laptops and
other devices;
- Student computer literacy, especially our first-years, and also training to students to utilise
the resources appropriately;
- Appropriate training for staff to be able to properly deliver online teaching, learning and
assessment to our quality standards;
- Sufficient University IT infrastructure to cope with the increased demands such as bandwidth
and hardware capacity;
- The challenge of practical and laboratory-based subjects;
