Africa-Press – Namibia. Popular Democratic Movement secretary general Manuel Ngaringombe has called on the government to raise funding for free education to acceptable levels, saying: as it stands, funding allocated to public schools is minuscule.
The government introduced free primary education in 2013 and free secondary education in 2016 in all government schools. However, Ngaringombe says, this has not yet been realised.
“There is little that demonstrates that there is a practical manifestation of free primary and secondary education in our public schools. Parents are still expected to fork out large amounts of money to settle contributions towards registration, stationery and other expenses each year in our public schools,” said the opposition leader, adding that government needs to raise the funding for free education to acceptable levels.
“Schools continue to voice their frustration over the fact that the funding often never reaches them, and it is, at most times late,” he added.
He said, there is a need for the Swapo government to re-evaluate the “blanket” implementation of free primary and secondary education at all government schools to make a concise determination of which sectors of public schooling need free education. Through this process, he said, the government would be able to ensure that only segments that need free education are funded.
Furthermore, Ngaringombe said, his party is greatly distressed at the events that led to the leaking of various Grade 11 and 12 NSSCO examination papers during the 2021 year-end examinations, which subsequently led to the nullification of the examinations.
“We implore upon the education ministry to ensure that there are no further leaks and disruptions in future examinations, and that the academic progression of the affected learners is not hampered, which includes consulting the higher education ministry and universities on the late admission of those who are supposed to progress to higher education,” he said.
He also bemoaned the state of infrastructure in public schools, saying the government has fundamentally failed in developing and renovating infrastructure in public schools since independence.
“Our public schooling infrastructure is on the verge of collapse due to this gross negligence by government,” he said.
“The building of key infrastructures such as classrooms, ablution and sports facilities must become a key priority for the government, especially in schools in the Zambezi, Kavango West, Kavango East, Ohangwena and Kunene regions,” he said.
He also called on the government to start rolling out e-learning as a matter of urgency. He said the past two years have caused major disruptions to the country’s education system due to the 2019 novel coronavirus.
“The education ministry was caught unprepared in terms of having the capacity to conduct learning remotely. This was a fundamental lesson that the ministry should learn from,” he said.
“The ministry should undertake to roll out e-learning within the entire basic education system as a matter of urgency, so that we avoid the catastrophic effects that the 2019 novel coronavirus had on our basic education system when and if presented with a similar situation in the foreseeable future,” he said.
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