HEADMASTERS and teachers across Namibia are juggling numbers around the clock to try and find space for the thousands of grade 10 repeaters demanding to be readmitted to school following Education Minister Abraham Iyambo’s order that they be allowed to try again.
Classes are bursting at the seams, with up to 48 pupils being squashed into a single room, a snapshot of the situation countrywide showed yesterday. Virtually all headmasters interviewed from Lüderitz to Oshakati and Rundu, and from Gobabis to Swakopmund, echoed the same message: they have to make the impossible possible.”My classes are pretty messy. But when your boss tells you to do something, you do it … or get fired,” a principal told The Namibian. “It will be difficult, but we’ll just have to live with it,” another said.It is not just a case of overcrowded classes: most schools simply don’t have enough teachers or books. Those with hostels face an even worse predicament – schools might still manage to squeeze repeaters in, but hostels are overflowing, leaving parents in a desperate scramble to find accommodation elsewhere.Johannes Hill, headmaster of David Bezuidenhout in Khomasdal, faced a mammoth task trying to fit in the 35 pupils who want to repeat grade 10 with the existing 300 this year. As it is, he has 15 teachers who don’t have their own classrooms and who have to use other teachers’ rooms during their administrative periods. With more than 1 200 children, David Bezuidenhout is one of the biggest schools in the Khomas Region, which will now have to cope with a teacher-pupils ratio of 1:48.Hill took it in his stride, though: ‘Teachers must have passion. There are so many circumstances they have to deal with on a daily basis,’ he said.Bisley Makaula, headmaster of Lüderitz Secondary School, has similar problems. After readmitting 16 repeaters, the school now has one teacher for every 43 pupils. Six of his teachers are stuck without classrooms. “This is unacceptable and not workable,” he said.’On paper, my classes are full,’ Harold Clark, principal of Okahandja Secondary School said. He can accommodate 15, maybe 20, of the tens of eligible repeaters at his school, Clark said. However, if the Ministry gives him more teachers and classrooms, he could do more. Clark said even prefabricated rooms for the schoolyard would be welcome.Herbert Britz, headmaster of MK Gertze in Rehoboth, said he has been locked in management meetings non-stop to direct the flow of applications. More than 50 pupils have already been readmitted.Windhoek High School (WHS) has already introduced an additional grade 10 class to accommodate all applicants – 23 so far. At Augustineum Secondary School in Katutura, principal Beatrice Losper already struggles with 41 pupils per class. ‘Parents have been begging me to help, but I just don’t have the space,’ she said.Seth January, headmaster of Ella du Plessis in Khomasdal, said the school is ‘really trying to help parents’. However, the school has very small classrooms and the hostel is packed, he said. The hostel at Epako Junior Secondary School is also full, but the school at least could readmit about 33 repeaters, headmaster Dorces Ndokosho said. ‘It is throwing everything out of programme,’ she said.Suiderlig headmaster Deon Williams said he ‘crammed’ 30 repeaters into his secondary school in Keetmanshoop.It was not bad news everywhere. Jan Möhr Secondary School in Windhoek, Gabriel Taapopi Secondary School in Ongwediva and Otjiwarongo Secondary School all boasted with excellent pass rates during the recent grade 10 exams and only have a few, if any, repeaters to place. However, the schools won’t be able to accept repeaters from other schools as they are already full.
