Last weekends, the Halhale Campus, College of Business and Economics, hosted the Eighth Festival of Higher Education Institutions with high spirit and tough competition among the nine colleges of Eritrea. The Festival helps the students of these colleges that are located in different parts of the country, to demonstrate their creativity, skill, talent and academic performance to visitors and among themselves.
“Equipped with knowledge; our beauty is our diversity,” is the literal translation of the Eighth Festival’s motto. And what the students from each college depict on their exhibition clearly shows that they are different yet the same; and that they are equipped with enough knowledge on their respective fields of study. Their presentation shows that they are well being tuned with the national principles of self-reliance and world understanding. Of course their performance tells that the students are well aware of the nation building endeavors and the future prospects of their country.
This year’s inter-college festival is a continuation of an intra-college festival that has been performed in every college since December 2016. What Halhale College of Business and Economics hosted was the final ground where all these colleges come together for a tough competition and an amazing performance.
During the opening ceremony of the four-day Festival, head of NUEYS at Sawa and Higher Education Institutions, Ms. Mensura Ismail, said that the Eritrean Youth Union has accomplished a tremendous job in the war for liberation and in nation building since its inception in 1978 in Keren. “The sole role of the Youth Union was to enlighten, educate and arm the youth for the national cause,” she said.
“NUEYS, in collaboration with its partners, provides the youth with a platform where they can share knowledge, depict their creativity, and present their academic performance,” added Ms. Mensura.
It has been 13 years now since NUEYS introduced a Festival at national level in Sawa. And the festival of the higher institutions of education is a continuation of such festivals that strives to bring the youth together academically and culturally. During these festival days, different activities such as exhibitions, seminars, sport, academic and art competitions took place.
More than 1500 students from the national colleges and a number of invited guests, higher government officials and NUEYS partners attended the four day festival that took place from 30 March to 2 April 2017 at the Halhale Collge, Dbarwa sub zone.
“We need to be job creators not recipients,” said Dr. Estifanos, Dean of the Halhale College of Business and Economics during the opening ceremony of the festival which was staged for the first time in their Campus. He applauded the chance given to the college to host the eighth festival of the national institutions of higher education and underlined that such festivals could create a healthy relation among students that come from the different colleges of the country.
During the four days, all colleges displayed an academic exhibition that demonstrates their activities and their future plans; different sport such football, athletics, cycling, different traditional sports and the like; art competitions in poetry, short stories and drama; as well as traditional and modern music and dancing; traditional fashion show… and many more activities.
The Winning Spirit!
When the four day’s Festival came to an end, on Sunday morning, following the highly competitive and engaging moment, who would be the big winner, was the most awaited thing. A cumulative result of all competitions would award a super-winner cup. Who would be “goblel” this time? Would it be the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) as usual or Halhale or the Orotta School of Medicine and Dental School? It was hard to predict for there was high competition especially among these three colleges. Finally, CASS won for the fifth time in eight years.
“We hosted a festival that demonstrates the youth’s creativity and academic excellence. It was a festival that showed high competition among the colleges in general,” said head of the festival’s organizing committee, Mr. Yonas Araya, during the Festival’s closing ceremony.
Looking at the creativity presented by the colleges at the exhibition site, you could easily understand how influential it could be in improving their academic performance. Since the students are asked to present their college for competition, the students strive to bring new techniques and new ideas and new ways of presenting their academic progress. In the future, such academic festival would produce a versatile youth that the nation and NUEYS work to see.