Prof Makala Lilemba

Talking about unemployment in Namibia is emotional and sensitive because of the enormous figures of the unemployed lot.  Some politicians might capitalise on the situation and try to score political points, but unemployment is an international scourge and should be tackled by both the government and the opposition political parties. 

Unemployment is forcing youth in Africa to dare cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe and influence brain drain on the continent.  Yet, the unemployment history of Namibia started when the colonial masters set foot in the country. 

Before their arrival, a system of education existed in Africa since the early arrival of human societies. 

According to Snelson (1974), the form and nature of traditional education varied from one society to another and depended on the environment and customs of such society, though most educational elements were common.  It was this system of setup, disrupted by the colonisers as put by Chazan (1992), that when Europeans arrived in Africa, they encountered indigenous states that had long-established patterns of interaction within their own cultural settings. 

As Barker (1999) puts it, traditional African education was learning by doing and was, therefore, participatory and involved sowing, reaping, fishing, hunting, building, cooking, weaving and so on. 

He also affirms that education in traditional African society had certain specific and well-defined aims that were passed on to the youth in the form of accumulated knowledge, wisdom and skills of the cultural group to ensure a smooth and easy transition into adulthood.

This assisted everyone to be well-adjusted and well-prepared for the society in which he or she was to take his or her place. 

Colonialism then came, which Kelly and Altbach (1984) define as a condition when one stronger nation takes control of a territory of another nation – either using force or by acquisition and in the process implementing its education system, which is quite contrary and foreign to the education system of the conquered nation. 

In the process, the colonised are forced to conform to the cultures and traditions of the colonisers. 

Colonising governments introduce schooling to strip the colonised people away from their indigenous learning structures and draw them toward the structures of the colonisers.  The impact of colonial education is that the implementation of a new education system leaves those who are colonised with a lack of identity and a limited sense of their past.   The indigenous history and customs once practised and observed by the colonised people slowly slipped away. The colonised become hybrids of two vastly different cultural systems. Colonial education makes it difficult to differentiate between the new, enforced ideas of the colonisers and the formerly accepted native practices. 

As per Tabata (1980), during the South African colonial period, a form of oppressive education system known as Bantu Education was enforced and imposed upon the Black masses in Namibia. 

In addition to the brutal, and terror campaign against the civilian society, the system created a reservoir of cheap labour for South African mines. This system numbed any envisioned progressive education system, and the young became disillusioned and decided to seek educational skills elsewhere (Ndeikwila, 2014). 

The imposed labour contract system forced the family members to live apart for years and many social ills manifested themselves.  

The Witwatersrand Native
Labour Association (WENELA), which recruited men to go and work in the South African mines (Ndeikwila, 2014), also depleted the country of its manpower, which could create jobs. At the dawn of Independence, the unemployment situation was staggering and did not improve after thirty-three years into nationhood. With more than 50% of Namibians living below the poverty line, it shows the severity of unemployment where young
people fail to get decent jobs after tertiary education and thousands scrambling for mean jobs. 

Every serious-minded politician should think twice before uttering the ethnic jokes we are forced to listen to, in the august house of parliament. 

Yes, the government tried a few schemes after Independence like the brigade system, but due to lack of commitment, the endeavours are tumbling down.  Green schemes were supposed to be operational in greener regions to cater to the unemployed youth.  Another panacea of unemployment was supposed to be the national service, in which the youth are inducted into military service after secondary education for technical and vocational skills. The Zambian National Service for example has ventured into agriculture and killed two birds with one stone, working and selling their produce to earn money for the upkeep and education of children. Many of the political leaders here sojourned in Zambia and could have tapped from this wisdom.  

The self-reliant projects being initiated could enhance employment if well-coordinated by the line Ministry. For effectiveness’ sake, the beneficiaries should be trained in the running of these projects, otherwise, it will still be a waste of funds. The government should also implement a work-oriented curriculum in which the current formal, more academic syllabus which encourages diploma disease type of education should be discontinued.  In its place, educators should strive to implement a curriculum that is more vocational and self-reliant. Like in the education for self-reliance by Nyerere (1967), education must inculcate and reinforce the traditional African socialist values of equality, cooperativeness, and self-reliance.  

It must foster the social goals of living together as communities and lastly as a nation.  It should involve the young ones in developing their societies and prepare them for work in rural society, where development depends largely upon the efforts of the people in agriculture and village development.

* Prof. Makala Lilemba is an academician, author, diplomat, motivational leader, researcher and scholar.