National Multiplication Trainings (NMT) Workshop at Chuka University
JOOUST in collaboration with Chuka and MMUST universities joined hands in support of strengthening higher education management and promoting the sustainability of DIES trainings. The trainings are under one of the pillars of DIES programme called National Multiplication Trainings (NMT) centrally coordinated by the Center of Quality Development at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Prof. Emily Ondondo of JOOUST as the PI and her able Co-PIs Prof. Erick Fwaya of Chuka, Prof. Judah Ndiku and Dr. Umulkher Ali were selected by the funder as the trainers in the 2025/2026 NMT project after their project proposal impressed the funder. To support them in administrative works, the project team picked Dr. Walter Sande of JOOUST and Mr. Kennedy Wachira of Chuka University to serve as secretariate. Targeted participants in these trainings are professionals who have not yet participated in DIES training. Selection of the 20 participants for this project was done under thorough inspection of their application by the project team. The 20 best were selected on merit from the hundreds that had made application from different universities in Kenya, both private and public.
Trainings were organised in two workshops: workshop 1 hosted by Chuka University from 23rd to 26th of March 2026 and workshop 2 to be hosted by JOOUST in July 2026 (date yet to be announced). The three day Workshop 1 at Chuka University was officially opened by Vice-Chancellor of Chuka University, Prof. Henry Mutembei. In attendances were Ms. Margaret Karai, the Deputy Director at DAAD Regional Office in Nairobi; representative of JOOUST’s VC, Prof. Julius Manyala. Prof. Manyala was also given a chance to deliver his speech on behalf of the JOOUST’s Vice-Chancellor Prof. Emily Akuno. This was followed by a short speech from Ms. Karai. Prof. Mutembei in his opening speech, encouraged participants to enroll in such trainings to become good leaders in their institutions and carry with them the gains from this workshop to their institutions. The Vice-Chancellor as a product of DAAD proudly narrated to participants how DAAD’s leadership training has moulded him to who he is thus challenging the participants to fully participate in the workshop and make and share their contributions in the workshop.
Prof. Mutembei’s opening speech was followed by Prof. Ondondo’s introduction of participants to the workshop. In the introduction, the participants were made aware of the structure of the project; objectives of the project and what was expected of the participantS upon completion of the training. Presided over by Prof. Ndiku, participants got to know each other including their institutions and their areas of expertise as well as description of their postions in their institutions; NMT committee members were also introduced. Prof. Ndiku then invited NMT mentor to address the congregation – something the mentor did perfectly well by identifying and explaining the need of adopting and funding of such trainings by African higher education institutions given the fact that we, the Africans, understand our systems and policies better than the foreigners. The idea of africanising the training was welcomed by the participants and a few that were invited to the opening ceremony including DVCs and Registrars of Chuka University.
