Namibia commits to rebooting education
With the now concluded Transforming Education Summit (TES) that took place in New York, the Ministry of Education Arts and Culture in partnership with UNICEF Namibia committed to rethinking Namibia’s education systems to reskill and upskill all learners in the country.A delegation led by the Minister of Education including the Executive Director, the Director for Curriculum Development and the UNICEF Representative and key technical staff, returned from attending the UN Transforming Education Summit which took place from 15 to 21 September 2022.
The summit focussed on the global crisis in education that has seen some 147 million students missing over half of their in-person instruction, since 2020. In 2021, 244 million children and young people were out of school. The Covid-19 pandemic has harmed the learning of more than 90 % of the world’s children – the largest disruption in history – with half of all countries cutting their education budgets, further deepening the crisis.
Speaking in Windhoek upon her return, education minister Anna Nghipondaka said, “Covid-19 has exacerbated the education challenges – reversing the gains we as a country made in the education sector. This has led to many children dropping out of school, with the girl child becoming pregnant at an early age and high levels of gender-based violence and abuse.”
The Namibian Education Management Information System (EMIS) of 2020 shows that 24 691 learners dropped out of school during that year. EMIS also reported that 2 348 learners fell pregnant in 2020, while the National Population Register System (NPRS) B12 2020 reported that 65 babies were born to children aged 13 years old in 2020.
National consultations
Before the New York TES, the ministry conducted a series of national consultations to ascertain the progress made since the 2011 National Education Conference and to consolidate recommendations on how the country should transform its education system for the future.
“The consultations made it clear that for us to have a successful transforming education agenda, we need to put in place a well-designed change management approaches that involve teachers who are the decision-makers at the classroom level,” ED Sanet Steenkamp said.
Underscoring the role of education in achieving all the Sustainable Development Goals and linkages with the climate crises, conflict and poverty, Namibia through the Ministry of Education highlighted its Commitment to Action on Education which included an emphasis on the need for digital transformation opportunities in education to prepare learners of today for a rapidly changing world.
“In 2020, about 18% of grade 1 learners dropped out of school in Namibia – missing out on the key basic reading skills needed to be mastered during the first year of formal school,” said the UNICEF Representative to Namibia, Rachel Odede.
“School closures deepened pre-existing learning disparities, within and among regions of the country, due to inequities in access to technology. Unlocking digital learning for all children has the potential to create societies that are both more inclusive and more prosperous.”
Multi-partner initiative
Globally, UNESCO and UNICEF launched Gateways to Public Digital Learning, a global multi-partner initiative to create and strengthen inclusive digital learning platforms and content.
“Our next step is clear,” Edda Bohn, the Deputy Executive Director for Formal Education in the Ministry of Education reiterated. “We are going to make sure that our curriculum framework is aligned to the requirements of the 4th Industrial Revolution and the needed technologies to keep our learners, graduates, and even our workforce, relevant.”
Responding to the Transforming Education call made globally and nationally, the Ministry of Education committed to some of the following key actions:
• Revisit the budgeting process to ensure that the money earmarked for education reach and benefit all learners
• Ensure that children do not miss out on school because of hunger – hence the ministry’s engagement with UNICEF with the school gardening initiatives and school feeding programme with the World Food Programme and FAO;
• Learning from the Covid-19 lockdown experience to access to digital technologies in all schools will be a priority.
• Develop a strategy for innovative financing and domestic resource mobilization.
• Institute a national literacy and numeracy drive.
• Ensure access to universal, inclusive digital technologies, ICT assistive devices and emerging education technologies, by strengthening collaboration with the private sector and development partners.
• Transform education offices, through organisational development to enhance greater accountability and good governance.
• Transform pre- and in-service teacher education programmes to respond to the demands of the curriculum in schools.