Education - The Teachers' Union of Namibia (TUN) has called for reforms in primary and secondary education which would gear the sector towards career-focused and relevant education. The TUN launched its official position paper ahead of the upcoming national conference on education, providing an analysis of the current education system and making a number of recommendations. In its position paper, the TUN broke down the education system into a number of sectors, namely early childhood development, general education, vocational education and training, higher education, adult education and lifelong learning, teacher education and the role of civil society in the education system. This article focuses on early childhood development and general (primary and secondary) education.

With regard to early childhood development, TUN's main recommendation is that this be moved from the Ministry of Gender to the Ministry of Education.

While TUN regards the attempt to develop a multi-sector approach to early childhood development under the Ministry of Gender as positive, it believes that this has the implication of making the sector peripheral.

TUN believes that placing early childhood development firmly within the Education Ministry would ensure clarity of roles.

TUN further called on Government to allocate more funds to early childhood development, and to develop a full teacher-training curriculum for preschool teachers. This includes the development of a recognised qualification to be offered by the University of Namibia.

In terms of general (primary and secondary) education, the TUN said the implementation of education policies remains a challenge, and recommended that policies that have been developed be implemented.

The TUN proposed the development of vocational or career schools which should address current demands in the job market. These schools would allow pupils to select a career path of learning, and would not restrict them to academic subjects.

According to the TUN, the automatic promotion of pupils should be done away with, as the system produces pupils who can only do the minimum and who only understand the minimum.

The TUN also recommended that Namibian pupils should complete general education, and that they should be trained with relevant content to ensure that when they leave school at any level, they can be used in the job market.

Calling for a reduction of the number of subjects from nine to six, TUN asserted that the current school curriculum assumes that a pupil should master all areas of knowledge, which it regards as practically impossible.

According to the TUN, the current curriculum limits pupils' ability to master in-depth knowledge, as there are too many subjects. It recommended that they should be focused on and relevant towards a career direction.

The TUN further recommended the introduction of pure and applied mathematics, as well as the reintroduction of vocational and technical subjects in schools.

Supplementary examinations should also be reintroduced, according to the TUN, as they offer options to those pupils who narrowly miss the required number of points to progress.

Nico Smit

The Namibian/22/06/2011