Nuusita Ashipala
ONGWEDIVA – The future of about 300 learners at the Bin Six Private School in Ongwediva hangs in the balance as the school is not registered with the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture despite enrolling learners for formal education since last year.
The school has a kindergarten and classes to Grade 7.
The learners are housed at the school.
The owner of the school Lahja Namutenya Shou refused to comment on the illegal operations of the school.
“I cannot comment until we conclude the meeting we had with the ministry of education,” said Shou.
The Director of Education in Oshana Region Hileni Amukana said she was not at liberty to dwell on the merits of the case and the future of the school, but instead advised parents to register their children at accredited schools.
She however confirmed the school has not complied with the guidelines in place and as such the school is not registered with the ministry of education.
“But this should be a lesson to all the parents. Parents should approach the directorate to see what schools are registered with the ministry or to even seek for admission to avoid a situation such as the one we find ourselves in,” said Amukana.
Amukana said the directorate releases a list of accredited schools in the region to avoid similar situations.
She further said that the ministry has a mandate to ensure that all the children in the region are placed and as such parents who do not find schools should approach the regional office.
Apart from running an unregistered school it has allegedly not been established what curriculum is being used.
In addition, the learners are also alleged to live in deplorable conditions with no proper toilet facility or food storage.
New Era understands that prior to registering learners in 2018; the school was only operating a kindergarten and at the same time offering vocational courses.
However, the school was since 2016 advised to seek accreditation with the Namibian Training Authority for the vocational trades, but none of that has allegedly happened.
When the school allegedly started registering learners, the directorate in Oshana Region had asked the school to cease operations until they are accredited, but the school allegedly only stopped using the front classrooms and moved to the back classrooms, deceiving the authorities.
Parents whose names are withheld said they were informed that the school was still busy with its registration, however, the school never came back to inform them of its status.