The ministry of education says there is an oversupply of teachers at the lower primary phase, which could leave many qualified teachers without placement in mainstream schools.
Based on the ministry’s teacher projection model, the shortage of qualified teachers is not a general problem in all schooling phases.
In an interview with New Era recently, education executive director Sanet Steenkamp explained that this implies that if government continues supplying lower primary teachers at the rate the ministry is supplying now, they will end up with unemployed, qualified lower primary teachers.
The projection shows a huge difference between the demand (teachers needed) and supply (teachers produced or supplied) of more than 1 000 teachers oversupplied.
On the upper primary phase (grades four to seven), the projection shows an undersupply of more than 500 teachers.
“On the secondary phase (grades eight to 12) there is a serious undersupply of more than 1 500, which implies that if we continue supplying secondary teachers at the same rate, we may face a serious shortage of secondary teachers or even a crisis in the near future,” she warned.
Steenkamp stated that core subjects such as Mathematics, English, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences will certainly take up the majority of teachers, for the mere fact that they are universal.
However, some local languages such as Afrikaans, Khoe-Khoegowab and Setswana as well as Integrated Performing Arts, Arts and Design and some pre-vocational technical subjects are also faced with a serious shortage of qualified teachers.
“Generally, the demand and supply are determined by the number of teachers produced by the institutions of higher learning per field of study. In the past few years, the number of institutions of higher learning that produced lower primary teachers had increased in the country, hence the oversupply of teachers in this phase,” she reasoned.
Considering the 15th school day statistics of 2021, the ministry at that point employed 30 995 teachers nationwide, with 10 707 more female teachers than male teachers, meaning 67% were female.
“There are more than 600 combined schools in the country, which makes it difficult to say how many are for only primary and how many are for only secondary schools as some of them teach across the phases,” she pointed out.
During the year 2020/21, the education ministry allocated N$68.6 million for stationeries and in the year 2021/22, the stationeries’ allocation was N$51.3 million.
Since 2015, the ministry constructed 32 hostel blocks countrywide at a cost of N$538 million.
Also, 218 classrooms were constructed at a cost of N$66 million. Comparatively, there were 12 828 classrooms countrywide in 1992 and by 2021, there were 26 090 classrooms countrywide.
The ministry of education is the implementing agency of the education and training quality improvement project, which received financial support (loan) of N$1 billion from the African Development Bank (AfDB).
This loan is augmented with a government contribution of N$405 million, while the University of Namibia (Unam) and the Namibia Training Authority (NTA) contributed N$55.1 million, totalling about N$ 1.4 billion.
According to Steenkamp, the project is being implemented for a period of five years. The project, which started on 28 March 2018, includes the renovation and upgrading of 17 secondary schools and three primary schools, as well as one national library and archives.
So far, nine projects have reached practical completion at a cost of N$907.2 million.
Moreover, she clarified that stationeries are not allocated per learner, but based on the number of learners per region.
With the introduction of the advanced subsidiary (AS) level during 2021, the government provided about 57 635 textbooks, 802 model answer books and 1 388 teachers’ guides to all regions.
The total cost of these textbooks was N$20.4 million, and all the textbooks were procured and delivered to schools offering the AS level.
During the same period, N$9.5 million worth of textbooks were procured for all other grades, namely pre-primary to grade nine.
–anakale@nepc.com.na
Too much… Namibia faces an oversupply of teachers at the lower primary phase.
Photo: Emmency Nuukala