PARENTS and guardians of children in the Moses ||Garoeb Constituency of Windhoek have been frustrated by limited spaces in schools, especially for Grade 1.
Speaking to Nampa on Monday, constituency councillor Stefanus Ndengu said limited space is a challenge every year, as the constituency only has four primary schools and two secondary schools to cater for an estimated 90 000 to 100 000 inhabitants.
“The population is growing, and we cannot stop that… What we need are more schools. The Khomas Regional Council and Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture must add more schools,” he said.
The principal of Moses ||Garoeb Primary School, Judith Sepiso, said parents have been flocking to the school looking for space, however, due to limitations, many children were turned away.
She said the school can only accommodate 1400 pupils, which means each teacher has about 40 children in their class, while the ministry’s teacher-learner ratio for Grades 1 to 4 is 35 pupils.
“I am scared for our country that we have children who are not going to school at all because they did not get space due to the limited number of schools. We might have some parents who might just go back home and sit with their child, which is really a sad situation,” she said.
Sepiso repeated the call for the establishment of more schools, especially in the informal settlements where the population growth has been rapid due to the rural-urban migration.
The acting principal of the newly established Cuba Primary Project School, Immanuel Nangolo, also called for more schools to be constructed.
He said another option is to employ more teachers and allow schools in informal settlements to operate on a plateau system, where some pupils attend school in the morning and others in the afternoon.
“Most intakes here are people from the rural areas and some of them are vulnerable children… The learner complement of the Cuba Project School is 1 260 pupils in Grades 1 to 7 and the teacher-learner ratio is 38, however some classes have 45 or more pupils,” he noted.
A frustrated parent, Annacky Inane, said she has been to all four primary schools in the constituency and other surrounding constituencies, to secure a place in Grade 1 for her child without success. – Nampa