Oshana Education Indaba missed the mark
By Victor Angula|
The education indaba which was held in Oshana on 9 October brought together many stakeholders who were expected to discuss and come up with workable solutions to the problems of poor education in the region.
But the indaba failed to produce desired results.
First of all, the organisation of the meeting was not good. For instance, there were too many learners who were made to attend. It was not clear what the contributions by the learners to the meeting was supposed to be.
The most important stakeholder, which is parents, seems to have not attended. If some parents did attend none of them participated in the discussions.
As the Minister, Dr Sanet Steenkamp, said in her keynote address: “Parents and caregivers have an important role in creating a home environment that values learning.
“Even where parents may have limited formal education themselves, they can encourage children to read, ask questions, complete their work, attend school regularly and take education seriously.”
The other thing about the indaba is that it did not come out clearly what was being addressed.
Dr. Steenkamp also stated: “Let us ask: What is the most important learning challenge facing learners in Oshana? What evidence do we have? What is already working? Where are the gaps? Who can help us address them?”
But none of this happened. People seemed to be speaking in general terms.
The Minister also said: “And, importantly: How will we know that we have made progress? If we can leave this Indaba with greater clarity on those questions, then this Indaba will have served a very important purpose.
“Let this Indaba therefore not be remembered simply as another meeting. Let it be remembered as a point at which we listened to one another, challenged ourselves honestly, shared what works, identified what must change, and committed ourselves to practical action.”
Unfortunately, it seemed exactly that the indaba became “just another meeting’. Due to time, the breakaway sessions where recommendations and resolutions were supposed to be made did not take place.
And that was due to poor time management. The meeting started an hour late. And even the Minister’s speech was too long.
Still, another thing. The indaba failed to point at one of the major causes of the high failure rate in the Namibian society: the fact that there is no reading culture in this country.
It is wrong to just expect children to read at school, but when they come home there is no expectation. And there cannot be expectation if the parents don’t show the example.
A society that does not read will always produce children who will do poorly academically.
– Victor Angula is the editor of Omutumwa News Online. He can be reached at victorangula@yahoo.com 0816191968.
