The answer to Namibia’s education problems – Producing quality in a larger quantity

Eish things are geting crazy in the world we live in, from Alfredo Hengari and Jochen Becker poking each other in the eye like kid’s at a playground to snow in the desert! Even worse, Europe is crippled by a heatwave, my heart grows heavy when i see elderly citizen’s on the metro gasping for breath. It’s a tough world out there, things have changed some better and others for worse. People threatening to kill Evalistus Kaaronda because he wants the truth out in the open and to top it all off our government organises a conference on education and closes of participation, which is bordering on lady may type crazyness (she’s licking people’s ear’s now, eish! I have egg on my face for standing up for her). 

So now i am going to roll up my sleeves and tackle our education problem. Where do i even start, the system is in a mess from the bottom to the top, primary school kid’s spelling is getting worse (SMS English and African movies, enemies of progress), Grades 10’s are failing, Grades 12’s are failing worse than them and Tertiary students are regarded by management at these institutions like cash cows coz they graduate and end up on the street because of a fatal flaw, there is no compulsory internships at tertiary level. The graduate enters a market where a minimum of 2 years experience is required, experience that not even several internships can provide. Sometimes  i ask myself if the institutions ever sit down to ask the industry what they want.

Should we scrape the system and start over, is it too late to fix it. Both questions can be answered with a No! The system is already too far entrenched and it is not too late to fix. It has weaknesses but it also has strengths and the one quality is that when it produces quality it produce’s top quality. You can scour the globe and i bet you you will find them, the high grade products of Namibia’s education system from Moscow to Havana, Joburg, Delhi all the way to Kenya. An example is that as to date none of the geologists that graduated from Unam’s geology department have failed honours or higher level further studies. If Namibian student’s at institutions all over the world are doing so well, why are there so few of these type of quality products and why is the majority still failing?

So in simple terms, the system produces very good thinkers adapt at solving problems and dealing with changing problems. The problem in my view (everyone else with have different views, but it’s my blog!) is that the foundation is very weak. Grade 1 to 7 is the key to succeeding in our system and a great percentage of learners are left behind in this phase, in the rural schools it’s a catastrophe. The excuses are many, but I propose a simple solution which is to strengthen the system from the bottom up, starting now. Those already halfway through and already lagging are sadly in for a struggle. Start the quality of learning at pre-school, teach them early and teach them young, which means train the teachers from grade 1 – 7 better and build better infrastructure, a kid that can spell and count will pass an exam on a broken desk, but put a kid that can’t spell at a new desk on a state of the art chair in an air-conditioned classroom and the kid will fail (think of it as buying Nike vapour boots for kids who can’t play soccer and then complaining when they get beaten by kid’s playing barefoot).

There is nothing that high school teachers can do because they are receiving low quality from primary schools. It’s not the roof of the house that needs re-enforcing but it’s the foundation, anyone with common sense knows that you build from the bottom up.

The politician’s don’t care because they send their kids to private schools and South African universities, not to mention free scholarship’s to China. So the onus is on us to increase the quantity of the quality products that come through the system it can be done but it will take time, effort, planning and brains that are younger than 50 years old (the senior citizens sleeping in parliament need to retire). There are several solutions that I could include but I believe this one will start us off on our way to realising all that 2030 day dreaming we are so proud off.

Since the politicians don’t want us to attend their special conference we should show them how stupid they are acting my organizing our own ways of discussing and formulating solutions, on facebook, twitter, through e-mails, discussing it in taxi’s, over coffee, we don't need to spend 7 million on experts who were never in the system and whose kid's go to private schools. If we mobilize (Trevor Noah does it better), we can do what the youth of Tunisia did.

Feel free to add your views and comments.