THE biggest obstacle in the way of developing Namibia’s education sector is the country’s inability to “state problems as they are”, the Namibia National Student’s Organisation (Nanso) said yesterday.
Nanso was replying to an earlier statement by Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary Vitalis Ankama, who last week appealed to the public not to call pupils who repeat grades ”failures”, as this would kill their resolve to do better. Ankama stated that it would cost Government too much to allow students to keep repeating the same grades over and over.”We do not consider students that are promoted in spite of not meeting the basic academic requirements for their grades as failures”, Nanso said yesterday, ”but view them as casualties of a system that is unable to respond to their academic needs.” Ankama said last week that the Ministry was aware of the weaknesses in the education system and has thus come up with a 15-year strategic plan called Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (Etsip).Nanso responded to this by saying that Etsip has proved unable to provide relief for the thousands expelled from formal education each year, and has also not been able to introduce a fair and progressive language policy.”The inability of Etsip to address the yearly circus of finding schools for thousands of grade ones, eights and elevens is perhaps the most visible depressant of current practices in the sector,” Nanso added.The student organisation stated that it does support Etsip, but as a student interest group it is compelled to identify shortcomings in Government policies and programmes that affect the education of its members.Ankama stated that it would cost Government too much to allow students to keep repeating the same grades over and over.”We do not consider students that are promoted in spite of not meeting the basic academic requirements for their grades as failures”, Nanso said yesterday, ”but view them as casualties of a system that is unable to respond to their academic needs.” Ankama said last week that the Ministry was aware of the weaknesses in the education system and has thus come up with a 15-year strategic plan called Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (Etsip).Nanso responded to this by saying that Etsip has proved unable to provide relief for the thousands expelled from formal education each year, and has also not been able to introduce a fair and progressive language policy.”The inability of Etsip to address the yearly circus of finding schools for thousands of grade ones, eights and elevens is perhaps the most visible depressant of current practices in the sector,” Nanso added.The student organisation stated that it does support Etsip, but as a student interest group it is compelled to identify shortcomings in Government policies and programmes that affect the education of its members.
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