SPYL welcomes education conference

THE Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) said it would throw its weight behind the Namibia National Students’ Organisation’s (Nanso’s) recommendations to be presented at the national conference on education that starts next week.

The secretary of the youth league, Elijah Ngurare, said the organisation would make sure that the position of young people will be heard at the conference, and urged the youth across the country to liaise with Nanso on educational issues that will be tabled. Nanso president Neville Itope said Nanso’s recommendations would be finalised this weekend, after the organisation had embarked on a consultative process with civil society and youth groups. ‘These will therefore not just be Nanso issues, but youth issues,’ said Itope. The thrust of the recommendations, he said, resolve around the provision of free and quality education, with ‘good quality’ teachers also posted to rural areas. Nanso is proposing that pre-primary education be compulsory across the country, and that education should be free from that level up to Grade 12. Itope said yearly increases of tuition fees at tertiary institutions should similarly be reconsidered, while sufficient accommodation is secured for students. The student organisation said all stakeholders – including the crucial involvement of parents – should be engaged in continuous communication to decisively address teenage pregnancies. ‘Education is the key not only to wider society but also a prerequisite to individual and personal growth. It is therefore the imperative of every citizen to participate in the education in our households, villages, constituencies, regions and country,’ emphasised Ngurare, while congratulating the education ministry for hosting the conference. Ngurare also urged ‘all progressive and peace-loving’ Namibians to support the recently launched International University of Management (IUM) and other tertiary institutions. He said Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) youth leader Sibuku Malumbango’s assertion that Deputy Minister of Education David Namwandi be moved to another ministry for his involvement in the IUM, should be ‘condemned with the contempt it deserves’ Two members of Nanso are on the education conference secretariat, alongside staff of the ministry and other government agencies, and academics. The education sector has come under continuous criticism for its questionable outputs since the adoption of the new educational dispensation. This conference is the first time such a broad-based platform is made available to interrogate the system’s deficiencies, and come up with an appropriate remedial action plan. It will develop an initial framework for a road map for reforming the education sector.