LETSEMA@NUL Elevates Sustainable Energy Research to New Heights
By Nthatisi Bulane
Multitudes of Basotho generations hold the National University of Lesotho (NUL) in high regard as it has been, infinitely, our only national university where intellectual prowess, keenness and curiosity were and are still forged. We thus owe it to ourselves to applaud the outstanding achievement that is LETSEMA (Low-carbon Economy Transformation through Sustainable Energy Modernization and Access in Lesotho) launched on the 29th of February 2024 at The ‘Manthabiseng Convention Centre, Maseru.
LETSEMA is an M8,000,000 European Union Erasmus+ funded 3-year collaborative initiative between the ERC (Energy Research Centre) of NUL and the Bethel Business and Community Development Centre (BBCDC), the University of Turku in Finland and Linnaeus University in Sweden. Mr Mpho Yengane, the person in charge of communication for the ERC states that LETSEMA “aims to revolutionize the capacity of the Lesotho consortium members to deliver high-quality education in sustainable energy.”
Through LETSEMA, Lesotho joins the world’s contemporary arena as it aims to generate employment (and creativity) opportunities in the green energy sector. LETSEMA is not the first, and optimistically not the last, of ERC’s daringly audacious and innovative endeavours. LETSEMA follows on the heels of an opening of a Master of Science in Sustainable Energy with the vision to yield clean energy increment across the country, which, according to the ERC coordinator, Professor Zak Thamae, prides itself as “the only fully accredited programme that EXCEEDS the Minimum Standards set by the Council on Higher Education,” states Yangane.