By Frederick Philander
WINDHOEK
The adoption of national standards to guide workplace performance training programmes for full-time teachers must be given priority by the Namibia Qualifications Authority (NQA) this year.
This was the urgent message from the Minister of Education, Nangolo Mbumba, when he last week launched the 4th Council of the NQA in the capital.
“The accreditation of 150 programmes and courses must this year be exceeded by the NQA.
“All education and training provision, whether it occurs in the public or the private domain, must come under the Government’s quality assurance umbrella sooner rather than later,” the minister said.
According to him, without growing the implementation of qualification and quality assurance reforms, the ministry will not be able to assure learners of the relevance of their studies to the needs of the local employment market and society in general.
“We will not be able to assure employers that they can trust the competence of people represented through certification.
“We will not be able to assure the rest of the world that Namibian education, training and certification are benchmarked to and sets benchmarks for global standards,” he warned.