Nul Vice -Chancellor Nqosa Mahao,left, shake hands with Nedbak Managing Director PJ Bouwers on Wednesday at Roma Campus during the handing over ceremony
Bereng Mpaki
NEDBANK Lesotho yesterday donated 18 computers worth M100 000 to the National University of Lesotho (NUL) at the institute’s Roma campus.
Present at the handover ceremony of the state-of-the-art computers were NUL and Nedbank Lesotho officials led by Vice-Chancellor Professor Nqosa Mahao and Nedbank Lesotho Managing Director PJ Bouwer respectively.
In his remarks, Mr Bouwer said the computers were meant to foster the use of technology in learning, particularly for postgraduate students and researchers.
He said the donation was in response to a call made by the university, during its 70th anniversary celebrations last year, for the private sector to support its quest to provide the country with quality graduates for the labour market.
“We believe the university contributes to the country’s economic development by providing us with future employees and clients. The university plays a big role in providing us with the right type of graduates,” Mr Bouwer said.
For his part, Prof Mahao said the donation was testimony of the endless possibilities that partnerships between the private sector and institutions of higher learning bring in developing the country.
He said technology was a very useful academic tool which learners could no longer afford to do without, adding that the computers would be used in the university’s post graduate laboratory.
“The computers will be used in the Graduate Centre, and cater for post graduate students. These days, technology is no longer a luxury for learning. There is basically no life without it. We therefore would like to express our infinite gratitude to Nedbank for their support,” Prof Mahao said.
The vice-chancellor told the Lesotho Times, on the side-lines of the ceremony, that prior to the donation, the 250 post graduate students had to share computers with their undergraduate colleagues which caused a lot of congestion in the laboratories.
“The highest failure rate in the past academic year was among computer science students. This was because they did not have the equipment needed to prepare for their examinations. So, the recapitalisation of the institution with computers is very important.”
He said they had also received 250 computers from the Central Bank of Lesotho and Vodacom Lesotho.
“Nedbank Lesotho has increased that number to 268, although this figure is way below what the institution needs to adequately meet the needs of its plus or minus 8 000 students,” said Prof Mahao.
The university, he said, still needed 700 more computers to ensure they had at least 1 000 machines at any given time.
