Undergraduate engineering training through institutional collaboration in the Southern African region

Abstract

The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and The University of Namibia (UNAM)
signed an Agreement of Co-operation (AOC) in 2000. This agreement, which
formalised an existing informal collaboration, was primarily targeted at facilitating
the transfer of potential Unam undergraduate engineering students to pursue
engineering studies at the WITS Faculty of Engineering as well as improving staff
collaboration in research and teaching. Students from UNAM's pre-engineering
programme and science departments have been beneficiaries of this agreement.
Four years later, an evaluation of the collaboration reveals critical issues vis-aÁ-vis
decreasing student enrolments, unimpressive student graduation rates, and
financial and operational complexities affecting student mobility ± all of which
have institutional as well as regional implications. This paper presents highlights
and pertinent lessons of the collaboration, and recommendations for similar
collaboration in the Southern African region both at an institutional and regional
level. As a whole, the paper uses the Wits experience to extrapolate principles and
strategic issues facing institutions involved in academic collaboration and crossborder
movement of students within the Southern Africa region.

South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 19 (4) 2005: pp.735-753