Donors help kickstart education plan

Responding to a report card of 'Can do better', Namibia has managed to raise almost US $60 million to address a critical shortage of skilled teachers and classrooms that has affected the quality of education. Recognising the development impact of a poorly-performing education system, private business and western donors last week stepped forward to help finance Namibia's Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (ETSIP). The funds will kickstart the programme aimed at ensuring all Namibians have access to a decent education over the next 10 years. "The provision of quality education, relevant to the needs of our country, is a critical element in our efforts to transform our society and develop our country socially and economically," said President Hifikepunye Pohamba. "It is not enough to give our people basic literacy," he added. "We must also endeavour to equip them with skills, capacities and competencies through education and vocational skills training." Another abysmally low final school examination pass rate this year led to renewed calls for reform of the education sector, with tertiary institutions complaining they were being forced to admit under-qualified students. To revitalise education, emphasis is being focused on recruiting qualified science and English teachers. Many schools have been churning out graduates who cannot speak and write English, which was adopted as an official language at independence from South Africa in 1990. Shortage of class space has also been a perennial problem. Early this year thousands of pupils were turned away from schools because they had no room; there are also great resource disparities between rural and urban schools. In February, the government admitted its shortcomings saying it was a question of misplaced priorities. Namibia, a middle-income country with extreme income inequality based on an apartheid past, devotes one-third of its budget to education - but most of it goes towards salaries. The government has set aside $500,000 to be spent on ETSIP over the next three years. "The time has indeed come to move ETSIP from the desks of the specialists who designed it, to the hands of the specialists who will operationalise it; moving it from head offices to the children of Namibia, the very people whose lives it is meant to improve," said Deputy Prime Minister Libertina Amathila.