Staff Reporter
PRESIDENT Hage Geingob, during the State of the Nation Address (SONA), reiterated Government’s commitment to driving reforms towards transforming the country’s education sector, adding that this Financial Year the government allocated N$20.6 billion or 24% of public expenditure towards the education sector, from which N$200 million is for the recruitment of new teachers.
“This is why, through project financing, I directed in 2017 for the Ministry of Education, Arts & Culture to implement the ‘Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Improvement Programme,’ which secured 1 billion Namibian Dollar funding from the African Development Bank. This Programme is ongoing with renovations and upgrading of 22 schools; one National Library; two Vocational Training Centres and construction of a new VTC at Keetmanshoop and a Veterinary Teaching Hospital at UNAM,” Geingob said.
The president said that in the education sector, National Education Statistics depict a steady increase in learner enrolments of 82% over the past 3 decades, adding that over the same period (1992–2022) the number of schools constructed increased by 32% while teaching staff have also increased over the period, by 106%.
The president further announced that an amnesty placed on interest payments for student loans with the Namibia Student Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) has yielded positive results, resulting in the waiving of about N$2.3 billion in interest debts, from all past and present student loans.
“A positive response was received from students and 14 million Namibian Dollars has been recovered this financial year, an improvement from the previous average of 4 million annual recovery rate. The amnesty will therefore continue until June 30, 2023,” Geingob said.
He added that towards to the end of this month, government will announce 93 Namibians who will receive scholarships worth more than N$34 million to pursue their Masters and TVET studies in areas related to the Synthetic Fuels industry.
