Webinar Topic: Mastering the Art of Communication
Date: Friday June 26, 2020
Time: 2.00 – 3.00 pm
Target Audience: UoN Students/Staff
Students from the School of Journalism and Communication highly encouraged to attend
Venue: Cisco Webex Live
Webinar Link: https://uonbi.webex.com/uonbi/onstage/g.php?MTID=ed392c5f50fc7039991698cf4c82869ca
Webinar password: Aprm6Gc3XS6
Karibu! Welcome! Bienvenue!
The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Kenya, in collaboration with the University of Nairobi (UoN), Iranian Red Crescent Society and East African Cartoonists’ Society (KATUNI) are holding an African virtual cartoon festival competition on COVID-19 aimed at creating a synergy between the artist and activism geared towards addressing the ongoing global pandemic.
The festival is offering a platform to the youths with various creative talents by enabling them to utilize their full potential in illustrating the Covid-19 pandemic phases while sharing practical and uniquely tailored concepts on how to keep safe during this period and post period.
This festival is solely for African and Iranian cartoonists.
The deadline for sending artworks to the secretariat is on 5th August 2020 by Midnight East African Time to this email: covidinafricafest@gmail.com
Public voting will be held on 10th July 2020 to 17th August 2020 at Islamic Republic of Iran’s Facebook page: @Iran.Kenya
While Jury selection will be announced on 19th August 2020 at Islamic Republic of Iran’s Embassy website: https://kenya.mfa.gov.ir/en
Career services and skills development must be an important part of an institution’s overall “academic” program. Office of Career Services (OCS) has a critical role to play in a student’s career education. Administrators need to recognize that changes in the economy will require a more prominent place for career education within their institutions and make it a priority to provide adequate levels of support for their career services offices. It is critical that the OCS partner with an array of organizations and especially those that understand the complexities of the jobs
markets as well as life after graduation.
It should be the commitment of the Office of Career Services to prepare students for the productive careers and lives of meaning and purpose during their academic life and post graduation. The proposal to set up OCS in all universities and Tertiary Institutions looked to have the OCS in all universities and tertiary institutions mirrored to other prominent OCS such as Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, University of Pennsylvania and so on that have attained prominence worldwide. The OCS will look to provide individual advising and campus wide networking events to expose the students to great opportunities.
The Office of Career Services (OCS) is committed to providing the following services under the career services function:
Purpose and function:
1) To assist students to explore their careers
2) To provide career counseling services to students
3) Serve as a campus clearing house on occupation in the public, private and non-profit
sector in both domestic and international settings
4) To provide placement of graduates into full-time and part-time employment
5) To help students explore possible business opportunities upon graduation
6) To match student (current and former) with potential employer for the recruitment
of graduates
7) To assist alumni in their search for new jobs and provide support during their
career transition
8) To provide access to information to students about alternative work experience
9) To educate students and the community at large about current career opportunities
and employment trends
10) To develop relationships with local employers and other stakeholders where
possible that will assist in co-curricular experiences for students
11) To effectively and efficiently promote and market the institution to prospective
employers
12) To provide a network and channel of communication between students and the
institution’s alumni thus using the alumni as mentors to students as they make career
choices
Today, most graduates if not all share similar goals: either to continue their learning to higher levels or to secure employment and start earning a living. However, most of them still face several challenges in these aspirations
mainly because of lack of adequate skills, experience, or even knowledge on how to properly wade through the employment sector or their career missions. The lack of the aforementioned skills and qualities have made most graduates to shy away from venturing into entrepreneurship to curb the high rate of unemployment in the country.
Steve Jobs once said, “The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world” (Stroope, 2017), simply the employers are looking for individuals who are a fit and ready for the workforce. Beyond the academic degree, students therefore must be well prepared for the workforce thus ensuring
they are updated on their current career, have a strong work ethic, positive attitude, be self-confident, act as a team player, have excellent communication skills, possess time management abilities, have better problem-solving skills, and generally show commitment towards the success of the organization he/she is expecting to work for (Mishra, 2014). Numerous case studies have shown that establishing and operating an office of career services in institutions of higher learning can significantly impact the students’ career outcomes.
The life of a student is an important and dynamic component of an active tertiary education experience. It provides the student with an opportunity to develop not only academically, but also socially. It is important to note that universities have a responsibility as part of the wholistic education of their graduates to prepare students for eventual entry into the work force or and entrepreneurship. This is a more complex activity than simply providing the student with greater levels of information and even more sophisticated general skills. In addition, it is also the responsibility of the tertiary institutions and universities to educate the student about the nature of the work force and the student’s potential place in it, and how the course of study pursued by the student may eventually affect the student’s place in the work force.
Career services provides the immediate assistance that the student may need to maximize his or her capacity to begin a career. With that in mind, the proposal is to establish the Office of Career Services (OCS) in all universities and tertiary institutions that will look to empower the students to make right career choices. Career services and skills development must be an important part of an institution’s overall “academic” program. Office of Career Services (OCS) has a critical role to play in a student’s career education.
Job-specific skills assessments continue to be one of the most common forms of assessments with more than 59% of organisations deploying them for recruitment. However, skills assessments need to continually evolve as the skills they assess change. Equally, the range of skills being assessed continue to shift in response to market requirements, ultimately providing insight into candidates’ strengths and weaknesses in relation to job requirements. Join us for a webinar that explores the changing world of skills assessments and how practical, on-the-job assessments, coding simulations, as well as language – both spoken and written – assessments can help you identify and develop your talent.
Register here for the webinar http://events.shl.com/shl-igsa-webinar-series-two-registration
WEBINAR INVITATION
PREPARING FOR EMPLOYMENT IN TODAY’S DIGITAL WORLD
Webinar Topic: Preparing for Employment in Today’s Digital World
Date: Friday June 19, 2020
Time: 2.00 – 3.00pm
Webinar Link: https://uonbi.webex.com/uonbi/onstage/g.php?MTID=e5ad5ba3636c4d17193e5ada228498c06
Password: 3uuRMwVf2j7
The University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Stephen Kiama has been appointed to serve as the Chairperson of the newly formed East and Southern Africa (ESA) Regional Committee of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). The term is for two years.
The Committee is part the 500 ACU membership whose headquarters is in United Kingdom. Kiama will be the first chair of the newly created Committee which comprise of universities in East and Southern Africa that are in a programme of ACU aimed at strengthening regional and international collaboration across the Commonwealth, but with links to the Caribbean and Americas, Europe, West Africa, South Asia and East Asia.
The role of the Chair would be to ensure the delivery of the committee’s strategy and wherever relevant to work alongside other fellow regional committee chairs to develop projects and opportunities for member universities.
The universities represented by their Vice Chancellors are the University of Nairobi (Kenya) represented by Professor Stephen Kiama Gitahi, the Technical University of Kenya (Kenya) represented by Professor Francis Aduol, University of Zambia, represented by Prof. Luke Mumba, the University of Malawi (Malawi) represented by Prof. John D Kalenga Saka, the University of Rwanda (Rwanda) represented by Prof. Phillip Cotton and the University of Dar-Es-Salaam (Tanzania) represented by Prof. William Anangisye.
Others include, the University of Pretoria (South Africa) represented by Prof. Tawana Kupe, the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) represented by Prof. Adam Habib; and, Makerere University (Uganda) represented by Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe.
Source :Association of Commonwealth Universities.