2006-01-19Staff Report 2 "By Engel Nawatiseb ONTANANGA The Swapo Party Youth League has appealed to the Minister of Education, Nangolo Mbumba to launch an investigation into schools that are charging high fees for School Development Fund contributions. The acting secretary for the Youth League, Evelyn !Nawases says poor people living in rural communities are unable to pay school fees due to exorbitant charges and in the process children are denied an education. She noted that the high unemployment rate in the country has left most citizens vulnerable and granted them the status of ""poor"" people. ""We must strongly condemn and resist any attempts to create two trains of education in the country, one for the poor and another for the rich. It is the rural poor from where our leaders have emerged to be where they are today and thus the rural poor should not be repaid with inferior education or crumbs from the tables of the urban centres."" !Nawases however welcomed Minister Mbumba's appeal to school authorities not to turn away children who cannot afford to contribute to the school fund. She called on the ministry to mobilise funds aimed at providing necessary assistance to the rural poor to access quality education on par with urban education. She encouraged the youth to strive towards better education in order to contribute to the accomplishment of Vision 2030 and economic empowerment for all citizens. Turning to the youth as pillars of government's success, !Nawases stressed that they (youth) have a constitutional obligation to be the transmission belt of Swapo Party's ideology and its programmes. She added that ideology pre-supposes a sense of understanding ownership and sharing of issues to translate the youth into important participants of the country's development process. ""A belt to be able to transmit and convey should be active, and it means that the Swapo Party Youth League structures and members must be active, otherwise they cannot fit to be the transmission belt of government. Unless we are active, we cannot be up to our constitutional mandate,"" she stated. She also commended the youth in the Olukonda constituency for establishing a ""Youth Against Crime"" unit in order to protect senior citizens and community members against criminal activities. The unit is reportedly also assisting the physically unfit elderly citizens in that area to cultivate mahangu fields and other activities. Meanwhile, the SPYL Secretary for Information, Publicity and Mobilization, Eliah Ngurare urged youth in other regions of the country to emulate the example of the Olukonda youth in order to speed up national development through active participation in organised programmes. He stated that the youth should not be complacent and wait for government's assistance in youth development projects but instead take own initiatives that should be supplemented through government's national strategies and programmes. He appealed to the youth to capitalise on opportunities created by government to empower themselves. ""The opportunities are at your doorsteps, all that is needed is to be creative enough and use them to march ahead to develop yourself into a formidable competitor that could make a difference in the fight for economic independence.""" 2006-01-19Staff Report 2
