The two Nowaseb brothers have lived in the Namibian capital since birth but have never attended a conventional school like thousands of children their age.

Instead, they have continually been turned away because their mother cannot afford to pay school fees.

This is despite a constitutional guarantee that everyone younger than 16 must be in school.

Government also has a policy that no children should be denied schooling because their parents have no money.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture, which was alerted to the children's plight in June last year, promised to make sure that school placements were found for the Nowaseb children.

They have now been joined by their youngest brother, Jerome (7), who dropped out of Tobias Hainyeko School at the end of last year because his mother could not afford to send him to the other end of Katutura every day.

Cassius and Avery are the children of Sussana Nowases, a paraplegic who also has tuberculosis.

Ever since her husband left the family in 1989, Nowases has struggled to find a steady job, relying on erratic domestic employment.

She lost their brick house in Katutura and resettled in a corrugated iron shack at Goreangab, east of the township.

But even there, the municipal debt began to pile up as she became unable to service the N$8 900 plot at N$181 a month.

By last year the bill for the land alone stood at N$22 000.

The water supply was cut off in 2000 because she owed N$6 000 to the city council.

That meant Nowases could not complete her TB treatment.

Sometimes she had no food to eat - a requirement of the treatment - and no water to cook with or drink.

Nowases was admitted to the TB hospital last week with a suspected stronger strain of the bacteria.

She has demanded to be discharged in order to look after her children, who are living with their 18-year-old sister, Jessica Nowases.

Jessica Nowases herself gave up on school after periods of hunger, walking barefoot and no money for a school uniform and other school necessities.

Nowases said her daughter Jessica promised to look after her if she was discharged.

Cassius, Avery and Jerome looked lost this week as other children woke up to go to school.

Veiue Kangueehi of the Ministry of Basic Education said earlier that Khomas Region education officials had been unable to follow up the issue of getting the Nowaseb boys into schools because they did not have contact numbers for the family.

The Namibian last year took Ministry officials to the house and followed up by providing whatever documents or information the civil servants requested in order to find schools for the children.

"They are working on placing those learners into school," Kangueehi said on Tuesday.

She said the regional education office is trying to get the Nowaseb children exempted from paying school fees, and that efforts are being made to put them in hostels.

* Tangeni Amupadhi is now a freelance contributor to The Namibian

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