On September, 18 Saint Petersburg state university of architecture and civil engineering welcomed a delegation from Namibia National University headed by vice-rector of the university Lazarus Hangula.

On September, 18 Saint Petersburg state university of architecture and civil engineering welcomed a delegation from Namibia National University headed by vice-rector of the university Lazarus Hangula.

Namibia and Russia has close partner relations. In 2010 there was signed an agreement between the Ministry of science and education of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of education of Namibia Republic on cooperation in education sphere. Official occasion for the delegation to our country was an idea to establish a faculty of architecture in Namibia National University. Currently the university does not provide education in this area, but national specialists in architecture are in great demand in the country. In the middle of August of 2014 Embassy of Russia in Namibia sent a letter to rector of SPSUACE E.I. Rybnov about the intention of vice-rector of Namibia National university professor L. Hangula to visit Moscow and Saint Petersburg and discuss cooperation fields in higher education and science with the Russian higher education institutions.

In Moscow the delegation visited the Russian Academy of architecture and engineering sciences, and in Saint Petersburg one of the principal objectives was to visit Saint Petersburg state university of architecture and civil engineering. At the meeting with the administration of our university they mostly spoke about organization of the faculty of architecture in Namibia National University. A place for the building is already defined, but the project itself is being worked upon. Moreover support of the Russian specialists will be useful in preparing education programmes.

As the faculty will be established from the ground up, the university will be able to admit first-year students only in 2016. SPSUACE proposed to study in our university before Namibia national university will be able to accept students. Our specialists are also eager to work upon the design of the new faculty of architecture: it can be given as a competition topic for our future architects.

In their turn representatives of Namibia national university are interested in organization of lectures of our professors in their university. They are ready to invite our young specialists and experienced professors to read lectures for a few months or even years.

At the end of the meeting guests of SPSUACE visited museum of university’s history and the chair of architectural design, where they all were impressed by the high level of students’ works. The dialogue turned out very interesting and successful for the both parties. Now they have to discuss details of further cooperation, create and coordinate a detailed plan of partnership between the universities and clarify procedure of sharing experience in education in architecture, engineering, and IT technologies.

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Photo: Dmitry Sutyrin