Tackling Poverty in Namibia

Firstly, i would like to congratulate our first woman president.

Namibia is now a complete ‘motherland’, as described in our national anthem. In addition to what our president said – that Namibia is too small to be poor – I have some suggestions for our leaders.

We should not rush, but rather have long-term goals. If our budget allows, the following ideas could reduce unemployment in Namibia:

We have teachers who have graduated but are unemployed. Why can’t we quickly change our education system to ensure every single subject has its own teacher?

Even at junior primary level, a teacher can be recruited to teach one subject only. Recruit deputy principals at every school, and subject heads. Make every subject offered in our education system compulsory at all levels.

Continuous evaluation and assessment of every teacher should ensure all teachers perform to the best of their ability. By doing so, many unemployed teachers may have a chance to be employed. At the same time, we strengthen our education system because each teacher would be dedicated to their subject.

Each region can be given a code sport officer in addition to the regional sport officer. For example, a sport officer responsible for basketball only, or football only, or athletics, and so on.

Additionally, the government could recruit at least two people from every village into the Namibian Police – so that residents are deterred from committing crime.

Recruit village development committee members and pay them a monthly allowance of at least N$500 each. I believe this would save many young people from a life of crime.

Every Namibian above the age of 18 who has national documents – whether working or not – could be given a monthly grant of N$600.

By doing this, we could abolish drought-relief support. It would also encourage citizens to obtain national documents to access such grants.

Furthermore, every registered Namibian pupil who is still at school could be given a monthly grant of N$500. We could then remove the Harambee grants and school-feeding programme.

I believe most Namibian children would remain in school, as this grant would be an additional incentive to stay in education.

– John Likoro

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