OMUNTELE – Education Minister David Namwandi has issued a stern warning to adults who engage in romantic relations with school children.
The minister was speaking at the official inauguration of the Reverend Juuso Shikongo Senior Secondary School in the Omuntele constituency in the Oshikoto Region about 60 kilometres southeast of Ondangwa on Friday. “If I hear that a certain parent or a certain contractor has impregnated a learner, we would make sure that the law takes its full course. I do not want parents to have horizontal engagements with my learners,” Namwandi warned.
Last year a general worker at the Reverend Juuso Shikongo Senior Secondary sexually harassed a Grade 8 female learner. The culprit, aged 40 years at the time, was arrested and later dismissed from his job. “Government schools are not maternity wards, they (the guilty men) must be arrested,” said Namwandi adding that those who pursue romantic relations with learners are not only ruining the future of the younger generation, but also acting as enemies of progress in the quest to realise national developmental plans.
The Reverend Juuso Shikongo Senior Secondary School has been described as another milestone in the government’s efforts to realise Vision 2030 as it is expected to help hundreds of children in that part of the country who have to travel long distances to other places for secondary education.
The school, including a hostel, was built at a cost of N$120 million and has been designated as a school of excellence. The school started in 2011 with grades 8 and 11, while learners were accommodated at the neighbouring Uukule Senior Secondary School at Onyaanya, due to delays by contractors during the building of the school. The construction was only completed at the end of 2011 and the school moved into its own building with grades 8, 9, 11 and 12, while Grade 10 was only introduced this year. Although the school has only been open for a short time, the performance of the school has already impressed educational authorities who say it is among the top performing schools in the country.
In the 2012 Grade 12 examination results the Reverend Juuso Shikongo Senior Secondary School ranked second in the Oshikoto Region after Oshigambo High School and sixth nationally. Currently the school has 260 learners and according to its principal Pineas Ekongo, four additional classrooms are being constructed which will further increase the number of learners at the school. The school is named after the founding pastor of the Omuntele parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCIN).
The late Reverend Juuso Shikongo established a congregation at that village in 1964. According to the constituency councillor Sackeus Nangula, several names were recommended to the Constituency Development Committee that later agreed to name the school after Shikongo, because of his outstanding leadership and the remarkable development he brought to the area.
Relatives of the late Reverend Shikongo were also present at the ceremony and donated a set of Discovery encyclopaedias and a publication known as Building Blocks of Science worth N$20 000 and also a cheque of N$10 000. Other people at the event also donated various educational materials worth N$46 000 and cash of N$70 900. The inauguration of the school coincided with the launch of its website, designed by Smart Graphics, which made it the first school in the northern regions to have a website.
By Tonateni Shidhudhu