Cabinet approves education upgrade plan

Cabinet has approved a report on the Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (ETSIP) and given permission to the Education Minister to table the report on the pledging conference for the Programme in the National Assembly.

Cabinet approved ETSIP in 2005 and urged the Ministries of Finance and Education, as well as the National Planning Commission, to mobilise resources from local and external sources. A round-table conference was held to raise funds and technical assistance for the implementation of ETSIP from April 19 to 20 this year, with assistance from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).At the conference, Namibia’s private sector pledged N$73,9 million towards ETSIP.International organisations confirmed support equivalent to N$434 million, while the Namibian Government had already contributed the equivalent of N$300 million towards the first phase (2006/2007 to 2010/2011) of ETSIP.A total of N$807,9 million is now available for the implementation of ETSIP.Over N$10 billion is required to fully implement ETSIP until 2020.A World Bank report, titled ‘Namibia Human Capital and Knowledge Development for Economic Growth and Equity’ of February 2005, revealed that the present education system was ineffective, because of a range of education quality-enhancing inputs.Lack of early childhood development resulted in 80 per cent of children entering Grade 1 without the required level of school readiness.Sixty per cent of primary school teachers and 30 per cent of secondary school teachers were unqualified and most lacked skills in the classroom, the report stated.A shortage of schoolbooks and the fact that 21 per cent of all schools had no permanent classrooms made the situation worse.According to the report, a large proportion of qualified teachers lack essential competencies such as mastery of their teaching subjects, good English proficiency, reading skills, curriculum interpretation and setting student tests.Approximately 19 000 teachers are educating some 550 000 children in 1 550 schools in Namibia.A round-table conference was held to raise funds and technical assistance for the implementation of ETSIP from April 19 to 20 this year, with assistance from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).At the conference, Namibia’s private sector pledged N$73,9 million towards ETSIP.International organisations confirmed support equivalent to N$434 million, while the Namibian Government had already contributed the equivalent of N$300 million towards the first phase (2006/2007 to 2010/2011) of ETSIP.A total of N$807,9 million is now available for the implementation of ETSIP.Over N$10 billion is required to fully implement ETSIP until 2020.A World Bank report, titled ‘Namibia Human Capital and Knowledge Development for Economic Growth and Equity’ of February 2005, revealed that the present education system was ineffective, because of a range of education quality-enhancing inputs.Lack of early childhood development resulted in 80 per cent of children entering Grade 1 without the required level of school readiness.Sixty per cent of primary school teachers and 30 per cent of secondary school teachers were unqualified and most lacked skills in the classroom, the report stated.A shortage of schoolbooks and the fact that 21 per cent of all schools had no permanent classrooms made the situation worse.According to the report, a large proportion of qualified teachers lack essential competencies such as mastery of their teaching subjects, good English proficiency, reading skills, curriculum interpretation and setting student tests.Approximately 19 000 teachers are educating some 550 000 children in 1 550 schools in Namibia.