PhDs coming to UNISWA

KWALUSENI—The University of Swaziland will next year start offering doctoral programmes.
These are popularly known as PHDs—Doctor of Philosophy.

This was revealed by the Vice Chancellor Cisco Magagula, who said for a while the university had been concentrating on offering undergraduate degrees and masters degrees.
“There is a large pool of under- graduates who have masters degrees and now wish to pursue doctoral programmes and I am happy to report that preparations are at an advanced stage for offering doctoral programmes.

He said some departments were planning to offer them next academic year .
Magagula said as the university, they welcomed the signs of the global economy recovery and the pledge from world leaders that never again would the world be subjected to the credit crisis.
“We hope this will stimulate economic growth and provide opportunities for our graduates to use their skills and knowledge to create jobs,” he said.

He said he strongly believed that as a small developing country, the citizens should aggressively continue to invest in human capital development, particularly if the country wanted to realise the dream of becoming a first world country.
He said the country therefore needed to upgrade and expand the existing physical infrastructure and teaching facilities and equipment of the current tertiary institutions, so that there can be more opportunities for high school graduates to acquire higher education locally.

He said the university was expanding and there were three capital projects under construction in the faculties of Agriculture, Health Sciences and Science, funded by government.                 
“The objective of these capital projects is to increase the intake and enable the University to introduce new programmes,” he said.

He said the teaching block at the Faculty of Science for example, was for the new department of Engineering which will be offering both electronic and mechanical engineering.
The university continues to undertake basic applied and commissioned research to extend the frontiers of knowledge and informed public policy.

Last year the academic staff was engaged in 87 research projects and published 67 scientific papers in reputable journals, notwithstanding the high lecturer-students ration, Magagula added.
He said apart from teaching and research, the university continued to provide community services in various sectors of the general public.

“The academic staff for example, continues to assist government , the private sector and NGOs in preparing policy papers and serving in committees and statutory boards,” said Magagula.
He further said the students on the other hand through their social clubs continued to build shelters, distribute food and clothes to the needy and provide skill training to small business enterprises in rural areas.

He said it was because of this community service that the students won the national competition of the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) adding that some of them were currently travelling to Germany to represent the country at the international SIFE Competition.
“The vision of the university is ‘Leadership through Excellence in Education’ and we believe that we can achieve this vision if we provide quality tertiary education, that is relevant to the needs of the country,” said Magagula.   

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