Windhoek
The University of Namibia (Unam) has come out in its own defence that since teaching colleges merged with the university there has been a noticeable improvement in the academic qualifications of teaching staff across the country.
Unam Dean of the Faculty of Education, Dr Charmaine Villet, yesterday pointed out that before the merger teachers with only diplomas and undergraduate first degrees were countless, and this violated international standards of at least a master’s degree to teach at tertiary level.
“The colleges totalled no more than 40 teaching staff who had a master’s degree, while only three teaching staff possessed doctoral degrees. Since the merger, the number of teaching staff with master’s degrees has more than doubled to 98, while doctorate holders are now ten. This number keeps increasing every year due to the stringent policy by Unam, which requires all former college teaching staff to meet minimum qualification requirements within reasonable time,” she noted.
Her remarks follow numerous reactions from various education stakeholders in support of the merger, ever since the Minister of Education, Arts and Culture, Katrina Hanse-Himarwa, made a public remark that government made a “mistake” by abolishing colleges of education across the country and incorporating them with Unam.
Last month, the minister conceded the mistake during the budget allocation of the education ministry, and vowed to fight to bring back teaching colleges.
“We made a mistake to do away with teachers’ training colleges… they must be addressed and restored. I stand for the reintroduction of BETD because it has provided us with good teachers,” Hanse-Himarwa said.
The Basic Education Teaching Diploma (BETD) was phased out in 2012 and BETD holders were forced to do a bachelor of education degree.
The action led to many prospective teachers not meeting the cut due to Unam’s stringent admission requirements.
Villet said that before the colleges were merged with the university, their infrastructure was basic and unreceptive of today’s technological needs.
The capacity for students, she added, was also very limited, and therefore the colleges only enrolled a small number of new students each year.
But since the merger, she said, Unam has constructed 56 new classrooms, lecture halls, science labs, libraries, offices, and video-conferencing facilities.
She said classrooms were fitted with the latest ICT to support instruction, adding that the measure certainly improved the number of students that can be enrolled.
During the 2013/2014 academic year, Unam in collaboration with the National Insitute for Educational Development (NIED), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the teachers’ unions as well as other stakeholders and partners developed a diploma in junior primary education.
This was in response to an official request from the Ministry of Education to the Unam Vice-Chancellor, Professor Lazarus Hangula. This diploma, Villet explained, articulates into the B.Ed pre- and lower primary degree, which was implemented this year at five Unam campuses.
“It is foreseen that with adequate government financial support to teacher education students, Unam will be able to redress the current teacher shortage as was proposed in our submission to the Ministry of Education in 2014.
However, current financial support to teacher education students is in a severe crisis and their staying in teacher education programmes in future is uncertain,” she observed.
Since the merger, she said, the former colleges have been transformed into true university campuses, offering a range of qualifications, thereby increasing access to higher education to the communities surrounding the campuses.