Africa-Press – Namibia. Unemployed teachers held another demonstration in Windhoek on Tuesday in hopes of meeting education minister, Sanet Steenkamp.
The unemployed graduates previously held a demonstration on 3 June this year against the lack of job opportunities.
The demonstration on Tuesday, themed ‘Abolishment of interviews for teachers and call for mass recruitment of qualified unemployed teachers’, saw more than 200 graduates from various institutions gather.
In an interview with Nampa, the national chairperson of Unemployed Teachers, Joyce Liswaniso who graduated from the Namibia Open College of Learning (Namcol) in 2021 and currently pursuing another education qualification at the International University of Management (IUM), expressed her concerns surrounding the fairness of interviews with graduates, citing that as one of the two main reasons for the demonstration.
“We want the abolishment of interviews because the interviews are not fair and transparent. The interview is only for people with connections and people with money who get the jobs. Not us who do not have money. It is only people with connections,” Liswaniso stated.
The demonstrators also complained that the number of unemployed graduate teachers at interviews is high, sometimes peaking at 800 interviewees.
The representative of the unemployed teachers, Nekulilo Ruben, suggested that the government employ teachers in large numbers, as learners outnumber teachers.
“They should just make mass recruitment where they can deploy teachers everywhere. Because we have a lot of learners who are in overcrowded schools,” Ruben said.
Another demonstrator, Dennis Kaunda, a University of Namibia (Unam) graduate, expressed that he has attended so many interviews that he has lost count.
Kaunda also indicated that since graduating in 2021, he has been a Yango driver to provide for himself. He added that the current situation is emotionally draining for most of the graduates.
The education deputy minister, Dino Ballotti was at the scene to receive the group’s petition; however, they refused to hand it over to him, demanding that the minister herself show up to receive the petition.
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