Interview with Dr Sehaam Khan

Dean of the Health and Applied Science Faculty at Namibia University of Science and Technology NUST

On the occasion of the B360 Rietberg Event of June 27, 2018

The Health and Applied Sciences Faculty has been one of the main B360 focus areas. To date, 21 B360 experts have worked with lecturers and students in different departments (i.e. Environ-mental Health, Food Safety, Occupational Health & Safety) in your faculty, most of them on repeat assignments.

What impact/added value does this continuous presence of B360 experts, on going relationship and support have e.g. on your lecturers and on students?

I think the Environmental Health Programme has reaped the most advantage where this is concerned. BioMed has recently come on board, and Natural and Applied Sciences has only joined this year. For me what is important is that a B360 lecturer does not come and take over the teaching from a particular local person and that person sits back. This is not relief lecturing. The academics of NUST should continuously find new areas for growth and utilise the experts to assist them. Ms Charmaine Jansen, one of our lecturers, has played a big role with regard to the repeat assignments and has contributed immensely to the success of the B360 initiative within Environmental Health. She has seen the advantage of this collaboration and has continuously identified areas for growth. This has benefited both her and the students.

16 students from your faculty were selected and spent a 3-month B360 internship with different companies in Switzerland. Five more are coming in August. Do you believe that this exposure to practical work is helping them substantially for their further studies and in their future job? If so, how or why?

The students who come to Switzerland and work for a short time not only work in this environment, but they interact on a global level with people that are thinking or maybe acting differently and who may have been taught differently. The interns also stay with a host family, so they are really immersed in the culture and get to know what living in a European country is like. It is not just coming here working, being in your room, being isolated and then going back. You get to experience Europe and to live here! This is great.

Also, the students who have come to Switzerland can put this on their CV, and any prospective employer will look at it. That is already a positive tick. It will bolster the level of confidence the students will have in that interview. They have been given a set of tools; not just the intellectual or technological tools that we hope to impart, but also the soft skills to be comfortable in interacting with people of different levels or different nationalities. This comes through in the interview and later in the workplace. Also, they have work experience that they will share with their future employers, and may say “you know when I was working at XYZ, I saw this being done in such and such a way. Maybe we can try something like this too.” In that way, the work experience was not only for the student’s benefit, but it may also benefit the future employer in Namibia.

Furthermore, I am sure that all the students’ families will tell you that it has been a life changing event – not only for them but also for their families as well. You will see the positive ripple effect for the rest of their lives.

Some of the former B360 interns are working and holding important positions in their field in Namibia (i.e. Nam Dairies, Health Inspectorate). One example is Mercy Haindongo, a former NUST student who came to Switzerland on a B360 Internship in 2016 and has made quite a career back in Namibia. What in your opinion is the impact of the internship in Switzerland for the intern to get a good job?

Many of the students live in a house with 8 to 15 people or with close family or friends because their parents have passed away or are living outside of Windhoek. This is reality for them… and now suddenly guess where they find themselves? In Switzerland studying, working and learning. It is a life-changing event for all of them. Mercy is just one example – there are more of them and they are working in very good jobs in Namibia now. They have decided to use this opportunity to assist them in finding and excelling in a job. They are not defined by their circumstance, but rather by the opportunities that have been given to them.

Can these students ‘do something’ for their country? Does this work?

Yes, it can work. It depends on the person. You have all this knowledge and experience and this unique set of skills that no other Namibian has, because you’ve been chosen to come to Switzerland. You have to share that, because that is also how you advance in your job. Suddenly you are making an impact on the employer as well and advancing them, and that means you are advancing the Namibian economy. You have to choose to share that.

How important is the exchange and transfer of practical and theoretical knowhow between North and South for lecturers and students in your faculty?

I don’t know if you can remember being in a University where you were almost too scared to raise your hand and ask a question. The students I saw participating in a Career Starter week were challenging the other people within the class, asking the important critical questions, and I was amazed at the level of confidence they exuded after that short time. They had spent two weeks with Léa and Florence from Roche and it was an amazing experience for them. They knew how to prepare and to dress for an interview, how to act in the workplace, how to prepare a CV, they knew about management – the set of soft skills we so often ignore. People coming South bring this set of skills and experience to Namibia because many of them are currently working within industry.

Also, when the interns come to the North it’s a few interns coming, but when a person from the North comes to the South it's an entire class that is being exposed to his or her teaching. Also it’s not just a benefit for the students, it’s a benefit and learning experience for the academic. Hopefully, when we sit in a class, we too can learn… we see the way you interact with the students and the way you impart knowledge, and I hope we can apply this to the next course we teach. I also believe it's a benefit for the person coming from the North, because they also gain experience in how Africa does things. We should never deny our students this great opportunity.

It has nearly 10 years that the relationship with NUST has worked and flourished. It’s a great relationship as far as I am concerned, and great friendships have developed from this as well.

Are there areas in the B360 program where changes/improvements could be made? Or areas within your faculty where you would like B360 to become more active and/or more involved?

It would be unfair to say there are areas that need improvement within the B360 currently, because I can only think of the success stories. But for my faculty I could definitely think of areas that I would like to expand in. Thus far, the interaction has almost been concentrated in Health Sciences. I want to encourage Natural and Applied Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics to be involved as well. I want Natural and Applied Sciences to think about the Career Starter. I think this programme can benefit all students no matter the degree they are registered for. This Department also has pieces of equipment worth a million Namibian dollars that are being underutilised. If we can get people to come and show our technicians how to use the equipment optimally, we could not only use it for research and for teaching, but also commercialize the pieces and make some money. For Mathematics, I’ve heard of the success story in Engineering with regard to blended learning and the online course for mathematics, and I would like our Maths lecturers to think of that. I will ask some of the lecturers who have been involved with B360, like Ms Jansen, and some of the Alumni who have returned to NUST to talk to all HOD’s. They will show the HOD’s how the entire process worked, how successful it’s been and why it has been successful. I want B360 to be part of the entire Faculty.

We discussed that in an assignment that will happen in July, we should also offer training courses for your staff. Because you have material that people don’t exactly know how to use, i.e. simple techniques on how to use the laboratory. What do you think about such training courses for the staff, held by B360 experts?

I have no objection to that at all. I think any academic who is going to say no to further training is denying themselves a great opportunity. I took every opportunity to attend every training that I could because I knew that I was going to need that in order to be a successful academic. If you want to grow, you have to continuously expand your set of tools too.

What is your biggest wish for the future collaboration with B360?

I have three wishes. Two are B360 oriented and one is for my Faculty.

Firstly, I wish for B360 to have supporting sponsors that would allow B360 to continue for years to come. We understand that B360 needs money in order to make our wish list come true. So my first wish is for you to have the continuous funding that will allow that to happen! 

The second wish is that you have employers within Switzerland that have seen the benefit of sending their staff South. I hope they can see that those people who come and spend time with us have been changed in a big way as well. When I talked to Florence from Roche who offered the Career Starter a few months ago, she said this had been a life changing event for her. So employers should not only think about their staff coming down and helping people in the South. Their employees will come back changed people as well. I think that Roche has a great system where they send people to Namibia and pay them their full salaries. What a great incentive that is - it is part of their work time and they impart the knowledge and experience of their company to Africa. So my second wish is that employers will continue to see the benefits of being part of a programme like B360. 

My third wish pertains particularly to the Faculty and a special set of skills I would like my staff and students to have… and that is the skills and knowledge shared within the Career Starter course. I see great benefit in having the Career Starter course and the corresponding skillset taught to every single staff member and student within my Faculty. This said, because I see how well that particular group of students in Environmental Health is doing. I wish that for every one of my students. I want them to make the best impression and to be the best marketing tools for the department and Faculty!