MPs tackle ‘mess’ in education

THE state of education in Namibia became the first issue to be tackled in the National Assembly on Wednesday, when parliamentarians got down to business directly after its official opening on Tuesday.

Whether Namibia is receiving value for its money spent on education, whether the problem lies with inadequate teachers, or whether conditions for teaching and learning in rural areas are to blame, MPs made it clear that the current state of affairs has become unacceptable. “Sometimes we stop talking because of a lack of knowing, sometimes we speak maliciously to prove a point, but the reality is we spend a lot of money on education, and yet every year we have the same problems,” Swapo Whip Ben Amathila told the House.”We spend over a quarter of our budget on education, but are we really getting value for our money?” he asked.Education Minister Nangolo Mbumba said in a ministerial statement read to the House that even though the education sector receives the highest share of Government’s budget, over 90 per cent of this money goes to personnel costs while less than 10 per cent is left for capacity building, educational materials and other running costs.”Yet we are unable to reduce the number of teachers we engage every year because of the increasing school population that we need to cater for yearly,” he said.Furthermore, current levels of expenditure on education may not be sustainable in the long run due to low economic growth and budget deficits, he told the House.Mbumba added that his ministry was fully aware of the fact that access to secondary education is limited, saying that this problem stemmed from a strong emphasis placed on primary education during the first 15 years after Independence.”My ministry is now in the process of preparing for the expansion of secondary education to allow more young people access to further and higher levels of training as well as better job prospects,” he said.This, he warned, would be a costly exercise, involving physical, material and human expansion.Mbumba said a number of priorities had been identified which should improve secondary education and would prepare school leavers for the job market or further studies.First of these would be to standardise Grade 7 examinations, thus preparing pupils for entry into the junior secondary level.The second would be to increase the intake and retention of pupils at secondary schools to about 80 per cent.Another of Mbumba’s priorities is to expand the physical infrastructure and to improve the learning environment of the majority of the country’s schools.Another Swapo MP, Peya Mushelenga, wanted to know from the Ministry of Education what the country’s educational planners are doing while the state of education keeps on deteriorating from year to year.”What do they do as part of their planning? Are they planning for failure?” He said he would like to see the ministry do an assessment of all the teachers in the country, looking not only at their educational qualifications, but also their ability to teach.”The minister says that in some countries you can’t teach without a degree.That’s all good and well, but the question is not your degree but whether you can pass your knowledge on to others,” he said.Mushelenga suggested that the University of Namibia assist the ministry in researching the current education system and help it to come up with recommendations on how to improve it.”Sometimes we stop talking because of a lack of knowing, sometimes we speak maliciously to prove a point, but the reality is we spend a lot of money on education, and yet every year we have the same problems,” Swapo Whip Ben Amathila told the House.”We spend over a quarter of our budget on education, but are we really getting value for our money?” he asked.Education Minister Nangolo Mbumba said in a ministerial statement read to the House that even though the education sector receives the highest share of Government’s budget, over 90 per cent of this money goes to personnel costs while less than 10 per cent is left for capacity building, educational materials and other running costs.”Yet we are unable to reduce the number of teachers we engage every year because of the increasing school population that we need to cater for yearly,” he said.Furthermore, current levels of expenditure on education may not be sustainable in the long run due to low economic growth and budget deficits, he told the House.Mbumba added that his ministry was fully aware of the fact that access to secondary education is limited, saying that this problem stemmed from a strong emphasis placed on primary education during the first 15 years after Independence.”My ministry is now in the process of preparing for the expansion of secondary education to allow more young people access to further and higher levels of training as well as better job prospects,” he said.This, he warned, would be a costly exercise, involving physical, material and human expansion.Mbumba said a number of priorities had been identified which should improve secondary education and would prepare school leavers for the job market or further studies.First of these would be to standardise Grade 7 examinations, thus preparing pupils for entry into the junior secondary level.The second would be to increase the intake and retention of pupils at secondary schools to about 80 per cent.Another of Mbumba’s priorities is to expand the physical infrastructure and to improve the learning environment of the majority of the country’s schools.Another Swapo MP, Peya Mushelenga, wanted to know from the Ministry of Education what the country’s educational planners are doing while the state of education keeps on deteriorating from year to year.”What do they do as part of their planning? Are they planning for failure?” He said he would like to see the ministry do an assessment of all the teachers in the country, looking not only at their educational qualifications, but also their ability to teach.”The minister says that in some countries you can’t teach without a degree.That’s all good and well, but the question is not your degree but whether you can pass your knowledge on to others,” he said.Mushelenga suggested that the University of Namibia assist the ministry in researching the current education system and help it to come up with recommendations on how to improve it.