Education-for-all celebration in Namibia was premature

EENHANA, Namibia — The week of July 16 was declared “Education for All Week” in schools across Namibia. To celebrate, my school invited seven other schools to our campus for a day of cultural performances, dramas, poems, speeches, and dances, all designed to recognize the importance of education.

While the teachers and students showed great enthusiasm and dedication in organizing this day of festivities, I couldn’t help but think about the massive hurdles standing in the way of equal education for all Namibians.

The government of Namibia allocates more than 20 percent of the federal budget to education, and huge changes are underway to ensure greater quality and equity in education. However, because Namibia has known only 20 years of independence after many years of apartheid, the people of Namibia are still feeling the effects of the educational disparities that existed for decades between black and white, and between urban and rural schools.

Some schools in the capital city of Windhoek and in coastal cities like Swakopmund provide quality education for students, and have ample resources in the way of libraries filled with books, working computers with Internet access, and qualified teachers. However, schools in “the bush” often have no computers, no textbooks, and not enough room to accommodate all students.

Eenhana Secondary School, where I taught this summer, is a good example. While the amazing principal makes the best of what she has to work with, the school with 556 students has only one functioning computer (but no Internet access), a library of fewer than 100 books, and no textbooks for some subjects. Grade 11 has no textbooks at all.  

Without textbooks for reference and explanation, teaching and studying become nearly impossible. This lack of resources, particularly textbooks, partially explains the lack of critical thinking skills I observed in many students in rural schools.

But lack of resources is just one obstacle to equal, quality education. Another is lack of school buildings themselves. Many students come from villages in the bush, meaning that they may spend an hour or two each day just getting to school. Others live in makeshift student “squatter villages” outside the school walls. Those students may go without running water, electricity, adult supervision, and sometimes even food, all so they can get an education. 

Students at hostel schools (private boarding schools), on the other hand, are able to live on school grounds, and have designated afternoon and evening study times to ensure that their homework is done.

Some students face also challenges at home. For example, many children at my school live with guardians or relatives because they are HIV/AIDS orphans. In my school, 40 percent of the students have lost one or both parents to AIDS. In addition, “Some parents from villages don’t understand the value of education,” said Eenhana mayor and teacher Ms. Shikongo. “They think: we have a good farm, we can live off the land, why should my child waste time studying?” Part of the problem is that the parents themselves did not receive an education, and as a result, many of them are unable to appreciate the value of a good education for their child.

Another obstacle to “education for all” in Namibia is the “mother tongue” policy that allows for one of the 13 national languages to be the classroom language for grade one to grade three, with grade four being the transitional period to instruction in English. 

This presents educational challenges because students often don’t speak English, the nation’s official language, at home. And because Namibia has an automatic promotion policy, students have no real incentive to learn English well. They can keep moving up from one grade to the next, even if they fail, until they take a national exam (conducted completely in English) in Grade 10. If they don’t score well on that exam, they are not allowed to  continue to Grade 11. Many drop out of school forever at this point. At the Eenhana school, approximately one third of the 120 Grade 10 students did not pass the exam. 

The Ministry of Education has worked hard to overcome some of these challenges by building more schools in the bush, providing school feeding programs in poor areas, incentivizing teachers to work in rural schools (by providing a “bush stipend”) providing teacher training workshops, and providing more support to orphans and vulnerable children.

“Education for All” day at Eenhana Secondary School was an indication of the fervor and hope for quality education in Namibia. Students celebrated education in English as well as in their mother tongue of Oshikwanyama. Teachers spent extra time in the weeks before the festivities preparing in hopes of motivating the learners. 

Even students from a school for the deaf were present to “sign-sing” a song about education. They were then “applauded” with hand-waving gestures by the students from all the other schools. 

While it may take time, it would seem that Namibians have the drive and desire to make “education for all” a reality. The question remains: Will they have the resources?