Student union labels Mnyupe scholarship discriminatory … claims only Nust, Unam students eligible

The Students Union of Namibia (SUN) has labelled presidential adviser and green hydrogen commissioner James Mnyupe’s recently advertised scholarship as discriminatory.

This follows the scholarship advert stating that it will cover full tuition fees at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust) and the University of Namibia (Unam) for two students seeking to pursue their first degree or diploma.

SUN national chairperson Vernet Mukoya in a media statement released last month said the scholarship opportunity is discriminatory.
When approached to respond, Mnyupe told The Namibian he has no comment.

“A growing Namibia needs a mind to support growing institutions and not an old mindset that confines us only to a few old institutions,” Mukoya said.

He added that Nust and Unam played a big role immediately after independence, but 30 years on the country has developed, with other institutions playing a key role.

“This should have given room for the scholarship to go across the borders of two institutions to fetch the potential candidates,” Mukoya said.

“It is scary to see that a leading figure such as the green hydrogen project commissioner has a stance only to single out two universities rather than to play an inclusive role that would see other universities and technical education and training (TVET) [institutions] grow.

He said TVET plays a prominent role in such projects and the decision to exclude it will be discriminatory.

He said SUN has always advocated for public-private partnerships to contribute to educational funds.

“Mr James, in his position, is supposed to advocate for all companies involved in green hydrogen to have a responsibility towards students’ funding, not the discriminatory James family…”

Mukoya said the union is strongly against any discrimination of students based on the choice of their university.

“The union hereby requests Mr James to reconcile his mind and do the right things or perhaps he must tell us that his source of funders has discriminatory policies and we would like to know them,” he said.

SCHOLARSHIP CRITERIA

In December, Mnyupe announced that he will be launching a scholarship to fund two Namibian university students to study in the fields of technology, energy, industrialisation and any programme that would bring them closer to that ambition.

The scholarship seeks one male and one female student who would like to pursue their first degree or diploma, covering the full tuition at Nust or Unam.

“The scholarship will only cover first attempts for any chosen module in your chosen course of study,” notes the advert.