Windhoek — Through an initial N$2 million-a-year grant funding over five years from business icon, Harold Pupkewitz, the Polytechnic of Namibia has established a Graduate School of Business.

The council of the Polytechnic has duly approved the naming of the institution as the Harold Pupkewitz Graduate School of Business.

The institution will offer a Master of International Business qualification (MIB), a Joint Africa Master's Programme in Comparative Local Governance (JAMP), a Master of Science in Leadership and Change Management (MLCM), a post-graduate Diploma of ICT Policy and Regulation (PG:ICTPR), a Management Development Programme (MDP) and an Executive Development Programme (EDP). The two latter courses will be offered from 2009 in partnership with the University of South Africa (Unisa).

Rector of the Polytechnic, Tjama Tjivikua, said new and relevant courses and programmes would be added in future.

The Graduate School component has been moved to the Science and Technology building, with details being finalised for a "fine executive environment for learning", Tjivikua said.

"We concentrate on fields critical to Namibia's present and future status in the global economy, for we do know that the future of this country rests in its human capital, who will be more and more required to have university degrees in the future of the knowledge economy. We thus must do more and more to shape the systems, thinking and the intellectual capacity of Namibia," Tjavikua said.

After 13 years of existence, the Polytechnic has the largest enrollment figure - at 9 400 this year - of Namibia's tertiary institutions.

Prime Minister Nahas Angula described the Graduate School as a trailblazer in business and higher education relations, and a crucial investment in enterprise development in the country.

He urged other private sector players to invest in other faculties such as engineering, ICT, and accounting.

"Academic learning and qualifications are no guarantee of success - they are but one part of the mix of knowledge, skills and attitude which define competence. However, recent research findings have shown conclusively that without a sound business education, most entrepreneurs are bound to fail and very few will ever develop the necessary competencies to grow their businesses to their full potential," said Pupkewitz.

The Pupkewitz Group has been closely involved in assisting the start-up of the Namibia Training Authority (NTA), as well as the Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (ETSIP) that aims to provide a learning platform for the whole education system on necessary changes.

At the Polytechnic, the Pupkewitz Foundation has also agreed to sponsor the Harold Pupkewitz Entrepreneur competition that aims at stimulating students to develop creative solutions to customers' needs and develop business proposals.

"Creativity, finding new solutions, is the essence of development. Doing more of the same will not take us forward," Pupkewitz said.