By: Dwight Links
The Standing Committee on Education, Youth, Civic Relations and Community Development met with representatives from the ministries of Education (MEIYSAC) and International Relations & Trade for an update on national youth interventions.
The meeting also examined the international treaties and agreements Namibia is part of, and the impact these have on local education.
MEIYSAC’s deputy executive director, Edda Bohn, noted that various policies exist in alignment with the constitution to eliminate discrimination and empower the education realm for the betterment of the youth.
On the subject of accessibility to education for children and households across the country, Bohn noted that this is a fundamental requirement that her ministry focuses on.
“This is the most important one as it tackles the possibility of discrimination and aims to eliminate it in the education sector,” Bohn stated.
Bohn explained that the legislation for this stems from a UN conference in 1960, which was then disseminated by UNESCO in 2014 and nations have been granted the opportunity to ratify the agreement ever since.
“Namibia has not ratified the convention since then, and the country has been approached by UNESCO on several occasions. We are also providing an overview of the situational analysis on the ratification in the Namibian context,” she added.
Bohn noted that Namibia has policies that speak to the elimination of the discriminatory practices or mechanisms that could impact children across various social strata.
“We already have ingrained in the local educational policies that speak to primary education like the School Grant Policy – which eliminated the mandatory fee contribution that parents had to provide – and the other dimension of the policy that spoke to the establishment of the School Development Fund,” she added.
Lovisa Immanuel from the directorate of research and innovation explained her directorate’s role is to facilitate a conducive policy development environment. Immanuel noted that these include the international agreements that impact Namibia’s educational landscape.
“This includes the framework for capacity in science, technology and innovation – be it human or institutional. We also take care of public entities that deal with the actual implementation of science and technology programs under the convention of research, science and technology,” Immanuel explained.
According to Immanuel, Namibia is currently implementing the revised Science, Technology and Innovation policy which was introduced in 1999 and then revised in 2020.
“The implementation period would then be from 2020 to 2030. It was revised because the policy was silent on the innovation, but the new version actually incorporates innovation into the new one.”
According to NDP 6, the research, science, technology, and innovation (RSTI) system in Namibia includes an integration of researchers, innovators, scientists, the private sector, government, TVET providers, entrepreneurs, and international partners.
“It is imperative for Namibia to strengthen the RSTI system, as it is fundamental to addressing context-specific developmental challenges and improving innovation capability,” the national policy document states.
In its previous national development plan phase, the country was trying to scale up its research and science sectors.
“During the NDP 5 period, Namibia focused on enhancing its research and innovation capabilities as a key driver for economic growth and competitiveness. Namibia conducted an extensive National Research and Experimental Development (R&D) Survey in 2021/2022, and it revealed that the gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) rose from 0.35 percent in 2013/14 to 0.73 percent in 2021/22,” the NDP 6 states.
Encapsulated in NDP 6 is that Namibia has to completely commercialise the realism of research, science and technological innovation to obtain the economic derivatives contained within.
