As the Minister officially opened the academic year, the familiar themes of access, opportunity and national development once again framed the start of learning across Namibia.
From classrooms to lecture halls, expectations are renewed that education must prepare young people for a rapidly changing world.
That expectation is now being tested.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has entered education not as a policy discussion, but as a lived reality.
Pupils are already using it. Educators are already encountering it. And institutions are already being forced to respond.
In doing so, AI is exposing weaknesses in education systems that go far beyond technology.
SIMILAR CHALLENGES
It is not the first time education has faced such a moment. In the 1970s, the arrival of calculators sparked fierce resistance from teachers who feared pupils would stop thinking. The opposite occurred.
Calculators removed mechanical computation and forced deeper engagement with concepts. Education adapted, and pupils benefited.
AI presents a similar challenge, but on a far wider scale.
Across southern Africa, responses have varied.
Some institutions have recognised that banning AI is neither effective nor educational.
Universities such as Stellenbosch have moved away from blanket prohibitions, focusing instead on responsible use, revised assessment design and clearer academic integrity guidelines.
In parts of South Africa and Botswana, schools and universities are beginning to acknowledge that AI literacy is becoming as essential as digital literacy once was.
Other institutions continue to rely on prohibition.
CORE ISSUES
This divide reveals a deeper issue.
For many years, education systems, from secondary school to university, have been structured around compliance rather than competence.
Pupils progress by collecting marks, passing subjects and meeting thresholds.
Promotion rules, admission criteria and funding decisions all reinforce this approach. In such a system, students adapt accordingly.
When access to opportunities depends on performance indicators, pupils naturally seek efficiency.
AI simply accelerates behaviour that the system has long rewarded.
This is not a crisis of discipline. It is evidence that assessment models are increasingly out of step with reality.
If an AI tool can complete an assignment with ease, the assignment itself must be questioned.
If pupils can pass without demonstrating understanding, learning outcomes need to be redefined.
And if institutions believe enforcement alone will preserve standards, they risk preparing students for a world that no longer exists.
Namibia cannot afford that risk.
As a developing country, national progress depends on graduates who can think critically, adapt to complexity and apply knowledge responsibly.
That requires education systems, at both basic and tertiary levels, to move beyond memorisation and predictable output. AI should force that transition.
Instead of asking how to ban AI, the more productive question is how to design learning that makes misuse irrelevant.
Learning grounded in real-world challenges. Writing rooted in lived experience.
Projects that engage communities, workplaces and national priorities.
Assessment that values reasoning, judgement and accountability.
In such contexts, AI becomes supportive rather than disruptive.
It assists with routine tasks, freeing pupils and educators to focus on deeper understanding and meaningful application.
This is not about lowering standards. It is about raising them. The academic year now underway presents a choice.
Education can defend systems that AI has already outgrown, or it can evolve deliberately and thoughtfully.
AI has not arrived to destroy education. It has arrived to expose it, and to offer an opportunity to rebuild it for a future that is already here.
- Timo Neisho is an information technology professional and public commentator on technology, education and public policy. The views expressed here are his own.
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