The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) plans to expand its science and technology programmes while restricting student numbers in the soft sciences as of 2020. NUST Vice Chancellor, Tjama Tjivikua told Nampa in an interview on Wednesday that this process would be contained in the institution’s five year strategic plan (PSP-5) which was approved earlier this year. It will be released to the public later. Tjivikua said the strategic plan for 2019 (PSP-5) is the fifth instalment of the institution’s five-year plan that outlines its vision, mission, goals and the strategies to achieve them. “We are strengthening science and technology in terms of new programmes, in terms of student numbers – we are growing students in those fields – and not so much in the soft sciences, the humanities,” the vice chancellor said. He said growth in the number of student enrolments in the science and technology fields would be achieved through the introduction of new undergraduate and postgraduate degrees such as master’s and doctoral degrees. “The (growth of) numbers is limited to a great extent by the facilities. So you can have 100 students in an accounting class but you can only have, say, 25 or 30 students in an engineering laboratory. So when you are growing numbers in engineering for instance you have to create new programmes because those numbers in existing programmes will not grow that much more,” Tjivikua said. He added that the university would not be eliminating any programmes as far as the strategic plan goes and student enrolment numbers in the “soft sciences” would instead be fixed in order to restrict growth in those fields. The idea would be to build on the university’s fourth strategic and transformation plan (PSP-4) which outlined the institution’s change from a polytechnic and to a science and technology university. The PSP-4 document says the science and technology university would focus on disciplinary, inter- and multi-disciplinary knowledge which would lend itself to greater application in professions and vocation within the broader sciences, engineering, technology and business and management sciences.