Salomo Ndeyamunye yaNdeshimona
A mechanic failure is observed from the number of obsolete cars in his backyard. A doctor’s failure is found at the graveyard, while a teacher’s failure is observed in the number of youths roaming the street.
While these failure illustrations are all debatable, in this opinion piece, I will leave that debate to another day. Allow me to concentrate on the fiasco of a teacher.
The number of youths on the streets is partly a teacher’s failure, parents, and the education system.
I will look at one reason why our youths loiter on the street and not the university today. The reason is the lack of career guidance in our school. A career choice is made by the student self, but the teacher and the parent play a role in inspiring and guiding this choice.
In the past parents and society played a role in career choice but today it is more or less the same, but more blame goes onto the teacher and the system they serve. A teacher can influence this choice through education, modeling, and career fairs.
In many schools across Namibia, career fairs are hoisted at the regional level, by institutions of high learning. It’s a pity that some regions like Oshikoto have zero varsities and let alone VTCs. It is however, done late, as it’s done for the learners from grade 9 upward. Learners in grades 10 to 12 have already chosen a field of study which in turn will inform the career choice.
Thus we need to revisit the strategy and do this earlier. Many fields of studies in many schools nowadays were influenced by the teacher’s qualifications who were at that school before the revision of the curricula in 2015/6s. Some schools which previously offered up to grade 10 only, were afforded the chance to offer grade 10 and 11, where a learner has to choose three important subjects to add to Mathematics and the two languages, which is supposed to be the backbone of their field of study and vocational choice.
Some schools found themselves offering one or two fields of studies only, thereby limiting the options for the learner at that specific school.
This is due to available teachers’ teaching levels and qualifications. Other schools found themselves adding so-called supplementary subjects which are far away from any existing career in Namibian universities, as they have teachers available for these subjects.
Teachers were not afforded a chance to transfer or move to schools where they can be better utilized, and easily help make fields of study choice easier.
This has thus led to many learners completing grades 11 and 12, and finding themselves in the street for up to three or four years, doing NAMCOL to acquire one or two subjects that could help inform their career choice, or ending up doing a career which they have no interest and passion in, just to keep them busy and off the streets.
This has many consequences, and can easily affect the student thereby some found themselves changing from course to course, just as they have no foundation to stand by and call a career. It is also this that has led to many students ending up doing education to become teachers, as it happens to be the only option available.
This has thus lowered our education standards, making the teaching career a stepping stone for many, and leading to an oversupply of teachers in the system that we experience today. It is for this reason that the failure rate is high, as we have people teaching who have no passion for teaching. Furthermore, the high number of graduates, and drop out have led to a high crime rate, high pregnancy rate, prostitution, illegal business, and drug use, just as many youths try to make a living in this harsh condition.
It is therefore this author’s view that career fairs should be done earlier as early as grades 6 and 7 to help the learner choose. Parents should be educated so that they can facilitate this from home. Institutions of high learning should invest in career guidance books that can be shared widely so that more and more people can have access, including those without internet access.
Life skills teachers should be more empowered and should take their role seriously in ensuring that they know and understand the importance of making a career choice earlier in life for these poor learners of our land. The two ministries should partner with media houses to have career supplements as part of their publication, more epically in print media, but also in other means such as digital.
The two ministries of education should make it a priority that career fair, is widely publicized in all corners of the country, and that institutions of high learning should partner to have satellite offices, even combined in each political region to disseminate information as much as possible.
This way educators can easily be assisted in reducing the mortality of students who are roaming the streets aimlessly and hopelessly or so I shall submit.