Landless People’s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi has cast doubts on what he termed “government’s laundry list of promises”, saying the current structure of the government will not see the implementation of free education.
Swartbooi said this in the National Assembly on Thursday while contributing to a discussion on the mid-year budget review.
This comes after the government reallocated N$814 million in its annual budget to the education sector, of which N$663 million is set aside for free tertiary education in the first quarter of 2026.
Swartbooi said countries like Germany took a gradual approach on free education for up to nine years, where they spent about 33 billion euros per year, and conceded that it takes too much of their national budget.
“Here, Namibia wants to do free education abruptly. Nust and Unam have not been consulted, as we speak they fear losing staff and downgrading of their rankings,” Swartbooi said.
He added that the decision was made without discussions or consultations and a time frame for universities to prepare themselves.
“This is the challenge, Nust and Unam some time back were requested to develop what is called an integrated strategy for self-sustainment and they have not been able to get to the point of reasonable self-sustainment, and yet the additional burden for national students is laid on them,” Swartbooi stated.
Swartbooi questioned if N$663 million is only going for the first quarter of 2026, where the sustainability is in that, and further questioned which sector will be compromised.
“Because you can train Namibians for as long as you want, but if your economy is not creating jobs, what are you training them for?”
Swartbooi concluded by saying the social welfare of the people has not been addressed, particularly with salaries not increased and pension grants and basic income grants not adjusted, and that black economic empowerment is also not stated in the budget agenda.
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