Mistakes were made - Nahas

JEMIMA BEUKES



Namibia’s first education minister Nahas Angula was instrumental in reforming the country’s pre-independence segregated education system to an inclusive system that brought quality education for all and set the tone for nation-building.

He took the reins of the country’s education system at a time when Afrikaans was still legally forced upon learners as the medium of school instruction and the level and quality of education was based racial differences.

“With the curriculum reform, we had to bring in new content and new methods of teaching and also embarked upon building infrastructure at schools. The Americans gave us a lot of resources, the British assisted with English language teachers and the Nordic countries such as Sweden came in,” he said.

In an exclusive interview, Angula reflected about the mistakes that were made, and the small victories, which in his view deserves commemoration.

Angula is also widely criticised for introducing the Cambridge education system in Namibia, a system which has produced the biggest number of Grade 10 and Grade 12 dropouts.

“Perhaps that is a legitimate criticism, but let me tell you, as long as you have an examination it is like a race. If you are running from here to Katutura, some will reach there first and others will only reach there later,” he said.

Angula emphasised the reality that when learners are compared, some will come out as highflyers and some as slow learners.

“But they should not also forget that those who left school early have not been forgotten. We have put up Namcol (the Namibian College of Open Learning to cater for them. We did not just throw them in the street,” Angula said.

He said reforming an education system for a new nation came with all sorts of problems, including a lack of resources and the challenge of convincing people that the time was right.

“In 1990 my budget was R600 million at that time, and today it has ballooned to billions, but still the schools are struggling. Part of the problem we do not seem to get it right is because we pay most of that budget to salaries and not much to improve infrastructure,” he said.

Education for all

He admitted that much effort has gone into getting every child into a school, but years later the quality of teacher education remains a headache.

Angula is also one of those who had reservations about government’s decision to abolish teacher colleges in 2010 and incorporate them into the University of Namibia (Unam).

“Universities have a tendency of just lecturing and the practical aspect of how to manage the classroom is often ignored. The skills you teach, for example, at the primary school level are not the same skills you need for secondary school level. At primary school you need to be very involved with small children,” he said.

Angula lamented that government has gotten rid of a learner-centred approach and instead children are just taught to memorise things without understanding. Perhaps there is a fear that a learner-centred approach creates critical thinkers like the (Job) Amupanda types,” he argued.

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