Cultural Diversity at the Polytechnic of Namibia
The Polytechnic of Namibia is a tertiary institution in Namibia. With its main campus situated Windhoek and branches in several other regions; this same institution is considered one of the best tertiary institutions in Namibia for its all-time offer of excellent and most updated services. The Polytechnic of Namibia offers a variety of tertiary level programmes such as bachelor, honours and master degrees. Being these services provided with the best and most updated services, the institution has thousands of enrolled students with an increasing rate every year, thus raising the reputation of the institution.
These large numbers of students bring a pool of different backgrounds, beliefs, values and cultures. The large variety of cultures might be the first thing that you will notice when setting foot on Polytechnic’s ground. The impact might be big for first-year students, for them not being used to being exposed to so many cultures in on single place and at once, but later on things start becoming normal and they eventually engage into the polytechnic’s spirit.
Due to the large number of different ages, races, colours, religions and ethnic origins, students tend to isolate themselves with other students of the same grounds; some may call it tribalism but it might be due to a number of reasons such as cultural shock, hesitation in engaging in other cultures, etc. Some engage in verbal quarrel to seek acceptance from other peers or to simply dominate and take over cultures that are a minority at the Polytechnic of Namibia. Despite all these misfortunes that may happen due to cultural diversity in the institution, the most important thing is that students are constantly taught be culturally sensitive, to accept and respect other students’ backgrounds, beliefs and values; which they eventually do.
The Polytechnic of Namibia holds an annual cultural festival, where both students and faculty are given an equal chance to present a bit of their culture and traditional gastronomy, either being the majority or minority to prove that our cultures play an important role in our lives, that no culture is more important than the other and that in culture we are one.
--Carla211002313 (talk) 15:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)