23 March 2010 (Updated 19 May 2010)


NAMIBIA’S EDUCATION SECTOR



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3NAMIBIA’S EDUCATION SECTOR


First a German Colony and later a territory of South Africa, Namibia won its independence in 1990. With its independence came the challenge of restructuring an education system that was crippled and fragmented. Under apartheid, Namibians were taught in Afrikaans, except in the Caprivi region by mostly unqualified teachers. The system was intended to disenfranchise and in some cases mis-educate the black majority. Apartheid left behind an education system with immense regional disparities in terms of physical and human resources, infrastructure, and education outcomes.1

3.1Learners


Namibia’s basic education system is divided into four phases: Lower Primary (Grades 1 - 4), Upper Primary (Grades 5 - 7), Junior Secondary (Grades 8 - 10) and Senior Secondary (Grades 11 and 12). According to the 2008 EMIS report, there are a total of 577,290 learners (585,002 according to 2009 EMIS data not yet published), 407,446 are enrolled in primary school, 163,879 are enrolled in secondary school, and 5,965 are enrolled in other schools (combined schools). (Table 1) Of the 577,290 learners in Namibia, 26,820 are enrolled in private schools with the remainder attending government schools. The Net enrollment Ratio (NER), the total number of learners enrolled in a set of grades divided by the number of age appropriate individuals in the total population, for grades 1-12 is 92.8%. However, this decreases considerably when only secondary school grades are considered (grade 8-12) to 54.5%. Namibia has achieved gender parity with 50.7% of female learners in Namibia schools (49.5% at the primary level and 53.8% at the secondary level). A major challenge in the Namibian education sector is the quality of education. Of the total learners enrolled in 2008, 96,706 were repeating a grade. There were no differences in percentages based on gender until after grade 5 when a greater number of females were required to repeat a grade than males. The entry requirements for Grade 11 in 2008 were 23 points and F or higher grading in English. Only forty-Nine percent of the 36,633 JSC 2008 candidates scored the required 23 points. While this is an increase of 1.4% compared to 2007, this result indicates that less than half of those learners enrolled pass grade 10.
Table 1: Namibia Learner Characteristics2




3.2Teachers


Currently there are a total of 20.830 teachers in Namibia with 12, 921 female and 7,909 male teachers. Of those teachers 13,853 teach at the primary level and 6,708 teach at the secondary level. A long term problem in the education sector in Namibia has been the lack of qualified teachers, partially a byproduct of the apartheid era where teachers were not required to have teaching qualifications or greater than grade 10 schooling. Namibia has four teacher training colleges and has an education program at the national university, the University of Namibia. They have also instituted a distance education program the Basic Education Teacher’s Diploma (BETD) program to improve the qualifications of teachers. Namibia has made remarkable improvement in the qualifications of its teachers. In 2002, 45.2% of primary school teachers and 76.4% of secondary school teachers had teacher qualifications. By 2008, those percentages have increased to 71% and 90.1% at the primary and secondary levels respectively. However, currently 1,316 teachers employed in Namibia have less than a grade 12 certificate. 3,320 have at least grade 12 and up to two years of tertiary education, and the remaining 16,194 have greater than two years of tertiary education. In addition, 902 teachers have no teacher training despite their education level. Another challenge in the education sector is teacher attrition level. In 2008, 9.4% of teachers left their positions. Attrition rates are twice as high (18.1%) among those teachers who have no teacher training or qualifications.
Table 2: Teacher CharacteristicsError: Reference source not found


3.3 School Facilities


There are a total of 1,672 schools in Namibia including: 1,039 primary schools, 445 combined schools, 178 secondary schools, and 10 other types of schools. Of those schools, 1,571 are government schools and 101 are private schools. School facilities vary greatly in Namibia. There are total of 19,460 rooms used for teaching purposes in Namibia. The vast majority of those rooms are permanent facilities (16,877); however approximately 2,460 teaching facility rooms remain either prefabricated constructions or traditional huts constructed by the schools. Eighty-one schools report using outdoor spaces, such as under a tree, for classrooms. Most of the schools are located in the Kavango Region. Namibian schools have a total of 637 libraries and 654 computer rooms. Currently, 53.9% of schools have electricity (770 schools remaining without electricity). Likewise, only 49.5% of schools have a land line phone. Seventy-six percent of schools have toilet facilities and 72% have a water supply.
Table 3: School Facilities in NamibiaError: Reference source not found


4ICT AND EDUCATION POLICY


Namibia is often cited as being well ahead of other African countries in terms of its utilization of ICTs, commitment to ICTs and education, clear policy formation around ICTs and education and even its ICTs infrastructure. Over the last decade, Namibia’s ICT and education sector has moved from a donor driven model to one that is led by the Ministry of Education with input and active participation from civil society, donor, and private sector partners.
Namibia has a well developed body of policy instruments that recognize the importance of ICTs to the overall development of the nation. Vision 2030, Namibia’s vision for the long term development of the country states as a primary goal “to improve the quality of life of the people of Namibia to the level of its counterparts in the developed world by 2030”.3 As envisioned by Vision 2030, Namibia has set the development goal of high quality education and training sector that prepares its learners to actively participate in a global “knowledge based economy” and transforms Namibia into a technology-driven nation. Recognizing that to achieve the social and economic development envisioned in Vision 2030 considerable resources and attention must be paid to the improvement of the education sector, Namibia has devised a fifteen year (2006-2020) Education Training Sector Improvement Plan (ETSIP). 4 The funding to be invested in the ETSIP plan is an estimated N$21.8 billion (USD$4 billion) with a commitment from the Namibian government to provide N$21.8 billion (USD$3.8 billion) and a need to identify N$2 billion (USD$349 million) from other donor and development partners.5 The objectives of ETSIP include:


  1. Strengthening the supply of middle to high level skilled labor;

  2. Improving the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of general education;

  3. Systematizing knowledge and innovation;

  4. Improving the effectiveness and relevance of the tertiary education system, and

  5. Strengthening the policy and legal framework for access to lifelong learningError: Reference source not found.

ETSIP focuses on nine key areas aimed at achieving these overall objectives. These include:




  1. Early Childhood education and Pre-Primary education;

  2. Improvement in the quality, equity, and relevance of basic education (primary and secondary education);

  3. Reforming and expanding vocational education and training;

  4. Strengthening tertiary education so as to ensure high quality standards, technical development of the workforce, and global competitiveness;

  5. Stimulating and supporting the process of innovation;

  6. Addressing the educational needs of learners of all ages through the support of adult and lifelong learning;

  7. Integrating ICTs across the education sector;

  8. Enhancing HIV/AIDS management and knowledge in the education sector;

  9. Pursing a capacity development program to enhance institutional education managementError: Reference source not found.

To support the better use of knowledge and technology in achieving these goals, Namibia development a national ICT and education policy in 1995.6 Its aim is to guide the use ICTs to improve educational outcomes. This policy articulates why and how ICT should be accessed and utilized in education and has undergone several iterations in 2000 and 2003 to meet the changing demands and realities of the Namibian education sector, reflecting developments in pedagogy, research, technology and partnerships. This policy reflects the various priorities in the multiple education domains including primary and secondary schools, tertiary institutions, professional development, libraries and community centers, as well as those related to vocational training and special needs education. The policy objectives are to:




  • Produce IT literate citizens;

  • Produce citizens with the skills to work in knowledge-based economy;

  • Leverage ICT to facilitate learning and teaching;

  • Improve educational administration and management;

  • Broaden access to education.

In addition, it describes classification levels of ICT integration into education in order to set and subsequently monitor specific ICT utilization.Error: Reference source not found


In order to ensure that the ICT and education policy would be achieved, Namibia’s ICT division of the Ministry of Education, in partnership with sector wide education stakeholders, developed a comprehensive implementation strategy under the leadership of the Tech/Na! initiative. Learning from past ICT initiatives, Namibia recognized the need to avoid fragmented approaches to mainstreaming technology into the education systems such as creating schools with expensive equipment but no training or support, content without connectivity, or trained teachers but no infrastructure.7 Tech/Na!’s mandate is to implement the policy objectives enumerated in the ICT and Education Policy in a coordinated step wise fashion. This comprehensive implementation plan identifies overall national objectives, priority areas, key components of implementation, activities to be carried out, assigns institutional roles, phase wise plans and progressive development levels, as well as specific timelines, and outputs or targets.8 The main components are:

  • Infrastructure readiness: e-readiness of learning institutions, hardware and software deployment, platform deployment, and to establish internet connectivity;

  • Curriculum development: the development of national ICT literacy certification with agreed upon standards, curriculum, and training materials. The development of ICT curriculums for all grades. These should include ICT literacy, ICT integration, and ICT as an examinable subject;

  • Content Availability: a standardized complete digital package of learning material requiring the identification of content, adaptation of existing content, localization of content, and finally the development of localized content;

  • Training and usage support: focused on 3 areas: ICT literacy, ICT integration for educators, and ICT as an examinable subject;

  • Maintenance and Technical Support of ICTS across the Education Sector

  • Monitoring and Evaluation of ICTs.

Populations that were determined to have the most imminent need of knowledge in technology application due to their participation or nearness in the workforce were given priority. The priorities of implementation are as follows:




  1. Pre-service and In-service Teacher Education: colleges of education, the NIED-BETD program, Teacher Resource Centers (TRCs);

  2. Schools with Secondary Schools: combined schools, junior secondary schools, and senior secondary schools);

  3. Vocational Education and Training Centers;

  4. National, Regional and Community Libraries;

  5. Community and Adult Education Institutions ;

  6. Primary Schools.

Finally, the Tech/Na! Implementation Plan includes a detailed description of development of national infrastructure and activities, a management plan, and a financial plan.


Namibia has established a draft Open and Distance Learning Policy (ODL) recognizing that many of the education and development policies referred to ODL without defining or articulating its role.9 The policy has been developed through a rigorous multi-stakeholder consultative process beginning with the 2005 National Conference on Towards Education for All: The Critical Role of Open and Distance Learning in National Development which identified the following education needs and characteristics that supported the development of ODL: 1) the need to provide flexible education opportunities to highly heterogeneous population; 2) the sparse population spread out over huge geographic distance; 3) the key importance of education and technological skills in meeting the demands of emergent global knowledge-based economy; 4) and the need to provide life-long learning opportunities. This conference led to the Windhoek Declaration on Open and Distance Learning which set the agenda for the future of ODL and Namibia. The government through the Ministry of Education asked for a development of a national ODL policy.
While the ODL policy is still under review, Namibia currently has several publicly funded ODL institutions including:

  • Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL);

  • University of Namibia Centre for External Studies (UNAM-CES);

  • The Polytechnic- Centre for Open and Life Long Learning (PoN-COLL);

  • National Institute for Educational Development Basic Education Teacher’s Diploma (NIED-BETD).

NAMCOL was established in 1997 through an Act of Parliament to provide opportunities to out of school youth and adults as well as professional and vocational training opportunities. They have developed a selection of grade 10 and 12 courses that are designed to be distance or blended classes to allow out of school learners to complete their secondary education. They have also developed several professional certificates including Education for Development, Local Government Studies, and the Commonwealth Diploma in Youth and Development.10 As of 2007, there were 27,805 students enrolled in NAMCOL programs.Error: Reference source not found The UNAM-CES offers three distance education bachelor programs (education, business administration, and nursing science), seven diploma programs in Education; and two certificate programs in HIV counseling and Midlevel Management.Error: Reference source not found In 2008, UNAM-CES has 1535 ODL students registered for the ODL program which is 18% of the UNAM student body population.Error: Reference source not found
Likewise the Polytechnic of Namibia offers six bachelor degrees, five national diplomas, and two certificate programs through open and distance courses. The Polytechnic also permits for full time students attending classes at the institution university to enroll in distance classes; thus, allowing for a greater degree of flexibility in students degree programs. In 2008, the Polytechnic of Namibia had 1853 students registered in ODL classes which constitute 21% of the entire student body. Lastly, NIED which is charged with curriculum reform and development for the formal education system, teacher training, and education research has implemented a Basic Education Teacher’s Diploma distance education program. This allowed for currently employed teachers to upgrade their qualifications while continuing to teach. Teacher’s were provided materials and were required to attend “vacation classes “. In 2007, there were 1620 enrolled in the program.Error: Reference source not found



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