The envisioned plan by the ruling party, Swapo, to bring to fruition the policy of free tertiary education for certain academic courses, medicine, engineering etc., as reported by New Era this week sounds plausible, but will ignite disappointment among the student population.
Given the pros and cons associated with free tertiary education, one hopes that the Swapo-led government has weighed the political, economic, and social implications such a move would have on the nation.
For the ruling party to want to prioritise certain academic fields of study over others undermines and destroys the very core of education, whereby students are urged to pursue a career that is close to their hearts.
Providing financial assistance to one or a few selected fields of academic study that helps to empower and enrich one group of people over the other is not exactly inclusive, as per our regular sloganeering.
That would advantage some and create an economic wedge between students, whereby some would have it easy, at the expense of the ones struggling to make ends meet – forgetting that it is all taxpayers’ money.
In Canada, for example, the system I benefited from to earn my undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications, allows every student who has been admitted to a credible tertiary institution to get his/her student loan if and when they apply for it.
If anything, Namibian students must be treated equally. No one should be discriminated against or treated unfairly for wanting to pursue a different professional life, be it in music, journalism, accounting, nursing, policing or any other field of study, even those fields of study that are not deemed a priority for the nation.
Mulife Muchali
Canada