Harold KT Tjahikika
Article 20 of the Namibian Constitution guarantees the rights of all persons to education. This provision, in my view, ensures that the State obligations towards education find relevance and reflection in current and future laws of the country.
Adding flesh to bones, the new Basic Education Act, Act No 3 of 2020, reinforces and continues to give practical meaning to this dictate of the Constitution.
The heightened demand for school places in both grades one and eight, including the emerging re-writing needs of the Namibia Senior Secondary Certificate Ordinary (NSSCO) and Namibia Senior Secondary Certificate Advanced Subsidiary (NSSCAS) learners, beg for a debate on how the relationship between government and parents can be optimised to ensure that each school-age child has secured a place in school.
What parents ought to know
As the nation moves towards 21 March 2024, it is of cardinal importance to remind parents that they have a sacrosanct responsibility towards the education of their children. All six (or to be six) years old children must be enrolled in pre-primary grade, and those transitioning from pre-primary, including those coming straight from home, must be found places in grade one.
Equally so, all children promoted from grade seven must be enrolled in grade eight.
The above dreams cannot be realised without parents’ practical actions and meaningful involvement in the search for school places for, and education of their children.
Parents have the duty to ensure that children are not only
enrolled in school, but that they physically go to school, and
attend school every single day.
Schools have timetables which set out times and subjects that children must attend on specific days during the week. To attend school means that learners must be in class, and be present during all lessons. It is only then that teachers can teach them, and they, in turn, can learn. In addition, the ministry’s school calendar dictates the dates and days on which children must attend school. Both the schools’ timetables and ministry’s school calendar must be respected and faithfully adhered to. Learners who did not manage to meet the entry requirements
for NSSCAS or institutions of higher learning must secure repeat-places in schools, and if unsuccessful, find alternative modes to continue with their education in order to improve their symbols.
Improved symbols would ultimately enable them to qualify for full-time NSSCAS enrolment, or institutions of higher learning opportunities.
As of recent, an undertone is heard among the rank and file of society that the 2023 NSSCO and NSSCAS results ended on a positive note for a minority few, while for the majority, the contrasting reality leaves them squarely in the same spot that the 2022 cohort were in. Therefore, in order to meaningfully influence the future of education, parents and schoolboards must participate in the interrogation of the NSSCO and NSSCAS examinations results of 2023. It is only then that their voices and footprints are heard
and seen in the new plans drawn up to remedy the situation.
Government’s obligations
Government has the
mandatory responsibility to construct schools and additional classrooms in order to provide physical space for teaching and learning.
It is, however, public knowledge that the physical facilities’ agenda of the ministry, as much as it is driven by real actual needs, is equally influenced by the volume of public funds at its disposal.
Despite financial constraints, government has continued to construct classrooms across the country. Scanning through the data in the EMIS booklets of 1992 and 2022, respectively, one notices that in 1992, nearly two years into independence, the total number of classrooms in Namibia stood at 12 828, of which 8 416 were permanent. The remaining number
included traditional, pre-fabricated and hired classrooms.
Fast forward to 32 years after independence, the ministry recorded 28 223 classrooms in 2022, partly comprising 24 221 permanent structures.
Increased teaching spaces have surely been made available to accommodate the ever-
ballooning learner population, which increased from 439 325 in 1992 to 819 749 in 2022. Government is still hard at work to address the scramble for
places at the beginning of each academic year.
As recently announced by the minister, an additional 500 new classrooms would be constructed as from February 2024. This
would, according to her, be in addition to the first batch of 500, which have been under construction since 2023.
This number, though very much welcome, may be
inadequate due to a huge backlog which has accumulated over years, and which is also being exacerbated by parents’ preferential choices of some regions, towns and schools over others.
In conclusion, may the soul of president Hage Geingob continue to reinforce and plaster the bricks that build the Namibian house, in which our children will continue
to be loved, protected and educated.
However, for the Namibian house to stand, parents are urged to continue to own up to their responsibilities of enabling children to attend and remain in school, while government would be expected to continue with the construction of additional classrooms and schools.
*Harold KT Tjahikika has a keen interest in the planning and management of education.