Crisis remains despite money

DESPITE the amount of money and effort that countries pump into education, there remains a global crisis in education.

This was said by Ruth Kagia, the World Bank country director.Kagia said the solution of the crisis is not money but how the money is used. ‘It’s not necessarily more money, but the more efficient utilisation of resources.’Kagia spoke at the national education conference in Windhoek this week.According to Kagia, ‘the promise of education has never been more tantalising than it is today’.But, she said, ‘education has become conflicted with global and economic competitiveness’.’Even though so many learners go through school, so many of them are not learning. What makes a difference is not the number of learners but the quality of their education. Resources invested in education are not delivering the [desired] results,’ she added.Another spanner in the education wheel is countries ‘copying and pasting’ what they see in other countries. ‘Many countries make the mistake by going to country X, seeing they’re doing something interesting and copying that. In the end you look like a camel. You’re doing cut and paste without context.’Kagia called for an early investment in education through more emphasis on preschools, enhancing the quality and equity of education and ‘listening to the market’.According to her, ‘many universities do remedial work by doing work that should have been done in secondary school’ because of ‘ill-prepared learners’.Although, according to Kagia, Namibian teachers are well-paid, more incentives need to be provided to help them fulfil their role. ‘Learning is between teacher and learner and the rest is support staff.’