Namibia: All children deserving of education

Every Namibian child deserves to be educated regardless of where they live in Namibia, says Deputy Prime Minister Marco Hausiku. “We are aware that there are limited teaching facilities at schools in rural areas and that teachers are forced to teach under harsh circumstances, but such teachers must remember that they have the responsibility to educate our children wherever they are,” said Hausiku. He made the remarks last Friday at Mururani some 130 kilometres south of Rundu where he received mattresses donated to a community hostel by the University of Namibia’s Rundu campus. Hausiku urged rural teachers to forget about the good teaching facilities their counterparts in urban schools have access to and sacrifice to educate the Namibian child. “Although your colleagues in the towns have better facilities to provide education, we ensure you that your sacrifice is not in vain, you are making a huge contribution to the education of our children and the development of our country,” he said. Hausiku discouraged teachers from using rural schools as a stepping-stone to get placements at urban schools. “I always admire the courage of teachers in rural areas, because they know that amidst the harsh conditions, they have a responsibility towards our children,” he said. The Office of the Prime Minister has adopted the Mururani Combined School, and renders assistance to the school to make sure the children remain in school. “Before we adopted it, many marginalized children could not stay in school the entire year, normally at the beginning we have a big number of learners but by mid-year the numbers decrease. If the previous administration could have given us equal opportunities we would not be speaking of marginalized communities, but there is nothing we can do about the past. We have communities who were denied opportunities hence we introduced special programmes in order to right the situation. If we still have marginalized people 50 years after independence, then the liberation struggle was in vain,” he said. Hausiku reiterated that children who were denied the opportunity to sit in a classroom should be in school. “This is the only way we can shape our learners so that they can be able to fend for themselves, otherwise we are not going to become a developed nation by 2030,” he said. Source: Education News