Windhoek
The Minister of Education, Arts and Culture Katrina Hanse-Himarwa unveiled her declaration of intent saying infrastructure development and teachers’ training would be her top priorities.
She said infrastructure development is a major challenge as learners in some remote areas are still taught under trees and in tents while teachers have no accommodation and some schools are without proper fencing and boundary walls.
Hanse-Himarwa added that a lack of infrastructure seems to be a common problem as it stood out in all her tours of different schools around the country.
“With such conditions how will teachers motivate learners if they are demoralised because of living in poor conditions? There is no way it will happen unless teachers are provided with the necessities of life.
The same applies to schools without fencing – there is no control among learners to see who is around the school premises and who is not. This leads to poor performance as no strict measures are in place to ensure learners concentrate on their studies,” said the education minister.
Speaking to New Era she said although the ministry’s budget will not allow her to fast track implementation of her plans within the required time frame, the fencing of schools around the country would be possible with the little pennies at her disposal.
“Knowing that the budget is not enough I have come up with a ‘friends of education programme’ that will be able to pull together all different individuals that have an interest in education and that support the educational system with their own finances or in any form of assistance. It will serve as the coordinating body through which these individuals can invest in education,” stressed Hanse-Himarwa.
With this programme she feels she will be able to deal with the challenges faced by the education ministry as the programme entails meeting the government half way.
“The programme is designed in a way that members that join this movement will make a commitment and outline what they will be able to provide to the education system for a number of years. For instance, if one is interested in construction, that individual can make a commitment to say in 10 years build schools or houses for teachers; or those in information technology can say they will provide computers to different schools for a certain period,” stated Hanse-Himarwa in elaborating how her system will work. However she said the initiative is still in the pipeline and yet to be implemented.