Africa-Press – Namibia. EXECUTIVE director of education, arts and culture Sanet Steenkamp says the impact of a civil servant strike on the country’s education system would be massive.
It would expose children to sexual violence and other social evils, she says.
“Pupils would not be able to be in hostels without people to prepare their meals and to supervise them.
The Ministry [of Education, Arts and Culture] has entered into agreements with hostel caterers, and the food items are perishable, thus there would be a great loss in financial resources, which would be claimed from the government,” Steenkamp says.
She says parents can demand that their children remain in hostels during a strike, since they have paid their hostel fees.
Steenkamp says school closures increase the risk of children being exposed to sexual violence, abuse, exploitation, gender-based violence, suicide, rape, and early pregnancy.
“To address the number of days which were drastically reduced in 2020/21, the ministry has rationalised [streamlined] the curriculum to focus on key topics and skills.
“This was conceived to enable pupils to at least progress to the next grades with basic and minimum requirements,” she says.
Steenkamp says in the event of a teacher strike, the first concern is that pupils have already experienced an immense loss of learning over the past two years, and needed time to recover through face-to-face learning opportunities.
“Some pupils are still performing below the expected curriculum standards and competencies,” she says.
Pupils are already returning from the long school holiday, and unnecessary additional days would have an impact on their progress and mental development, she says.
“Our pupils cannot lose any more teaching and learning time.
“Learning loss within all phases, and particularly for grades taking national examinations, would be catastrophic,” Steenkamp says.
She says schools already have national examination timetables and school closures would have a negative impact on all the processes involved, including the release of results.
“The next academic year calendar would also be negatively impacted, both for formal education and for institutions of higher learning. This would also have massive financial implications,” she says.
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