The national Green Hydrogen initiative is anticipated to create new industries and job opportunities. The multiple job opportunities will though require a skilled and specialised workforce where the country is not currently possessing such skills. Therefore, new academic programmes and capacity building exercises will need to be developed and implemented to create the pool of skills required within the country.
The University of Namibia will be conducting a detailed assessment of all its programme offerings to determine how the current, revised and proposed new programmes address the potential future needs of the country for the production of Green Hydrogen and Ammonia and the associated industries and workforce demands.
This assessment will include a needs analysis to determine the future workforce needs across all sectors of the economy. A curriculum development exercise will then be carried out with its associated resource needs such as new hires, specialists, facilities, equipment, materials and services.
New programmes require specialist skills who will be need to be recruited from abroad initially to train postgraduate students and existing university staff who then act as replicators of knowledge and skills. The academic undergraduate and postgraduate formal degree programmes will be complemented with a plethora of diploma and certificate programmes and short courses.
As the market needs to cater for an experienced and educated workforce in addition to fresh graduates, it is proposed to establish a Training and Certification Centre which will be attached to the Namibia Green Hydrogen Research Institute to offer short courses and industry-based certifications to skill, reskill and upskill the workforce.