Daniel Sampayo
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Every time you switch on the television, or radio or read the newspaper, all you will hear are the same endless problems the country has been facing year after year, while there are no strategies in place to solve them.
A statement can be made that the government is relying on hope to solve problems – doing little to nothing, and wishing that one day things will just be okay. The following are some of the problems the nation is facing.
Unemployment For years, the unemployment rate has been rising, on the watch of our leaders. This problem has been profoundly ignored! Today, we have an obscene number
of candidates attending one interview. One recent controversial scenario is the 700 candidates who attended selection for one teaching post at Ofifiya Primary School in the Ohangwena region. It got me asking, how do our leaders view this in the boardroom? Are our leaders doing nothing because they don’t feel the pain the young people are going through? Or are graduates expected to become self-made millionaires from rugs or the very education system which got them into the streets in the first place?
How did we get here?
Education system
Our education system has done so much damage to the creativity of students. Most students are trained that there is only a one-size-fits-all to success. All that students know is graduate, get employed, and then live happily ever after.
I think this formula has become nothing but a fairytale. Most students are in school, being educated for an uncertain future – for the majority of graduates without job security, they are toast! – they cannot survive or see opportunities in the real world.
I think there is a lack of education that gives them the knowledge to see other ways to prosper in the real world. A school dropout from Zimbabwe may better survive in Namibia than a Namibian university graduate with a degree.
Rise in crime The main cause of crime is poverty! Our leaders need to understand that crime is not only fought by expanding the police force. Crime is best fought with change – a change that involves upgrading the living standard of people. If the focus is only on tightening the screws of law, crime will keep rising – no matter what Act is passed.
If the fight is focused on improving the living standards, I think there will be a drastic decline in crime.
Killing young people’s spirit
As a graduate of the University of Namibia, I am utterly demoralised to see how helpless, depressed and poor my fellow graduates are. Young people in schools are having second thoughts whether education is really that important in this country. Because we as their brothers and sisters are roaming the streets, like zombies.
How will young people even proudly participate in voting if this is how they are being treated? How will we learn to be tolerant and considerate of other people’s well-being if greed and corruption are heavily practised at the top?
Is not what our leaders are doing supposed to be exemplary to young people? If so, then the core values of government institutions need to be greed, corruption, injustice, unfairness and ignorance.
Where to from here? The best way to predict the future is to look at the past.
Our leaders have been kicking the can down the road. As the saying goes, “Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to suffer its consequences.”
These crises have reached a point where if nothing is done, we will soon wake up in a different world. This is not the time to rely on hope to solve problems. Good planning, action and moral compasses are promptly needed to solve these crises. In closing, I leave this to your imagination.
A teenage mother makes sure to feed her child before she goes to sleep – even if it means she sleeps with hunger. How can young people be neglected to sleep with hunger, while elders have a delicious feast? With this kind of grooming, what kind of people will these young children become one day?