New Era

RUACANA - The Ministry of Education launched the Education for All (EFA) week at Ruacana in the Omusati Region on Monday.

Omusati Regional Governor Sacky Kayone, who read a statement by the Minister of Education Nangolo Mbumba, said: "This is a week where all schools in the country are expected to sensitize learners at their schools, the community at large as well as stakeholders about the Big Read 'Youth and Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning' which is the theme of this week's EFA. EFA week runs from July 27 to 31, 2009.

Mbumba said in his statement that it is expected that school children, adults, key partners in education, circuits, cluster centres, community organizations and many other institutions involved with adult education will come up with various initiatives to advocate and raise awareness with regard to literacy.

Sixty-four countries including Namibia met at a World Education Forum in Darkar in 2000 to formulate how EFA should be celebrated annually.

These countries, including Namibia, made a commitment to provide quality education for all by 2015 through the six goals of Education for All.

"The Government together with our international partners is committed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals which were outlined in the Millennium Declaration in September 2000," he said.

"Among those goals are to achieve universal primary education by 2015 and the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women. Education For All should involve everybody and nobody is too old to learn," he said.

It was noted many adults did not have the opportunity to attend school for various reasons, including political reasons. And many people left the country for exile at an age when they were supposed to be attending school.

According to the minister, some tested leaders devoted their entire youth and adult lives to the liberation struggle.

Namibia is doing well in both formal and vocational training institutions across the country and the enrolment in vocational training institutions increased from 2 733 in 2005 to 5 000 in 2008, while the annual completion rate increased from 56 percent in 2005 to 65 percent in 2007, according to official records.

In addition, three vocational institutions will be built to increase the number of vocational institutions in the country by 2011.

About 70 percent of the annual participants in the National Literacy Programme (NPL) which enrols between 30 000 and 40 000 adult learners are women and Mbumba encouraged men to take part in adult education.

According to the Unesco Global Monitoring Report of 2009, an estimated 776 million adults (which is 16 percent) of the world's adult population are unable to read and/or write, without understanding a simple statement in a national or official language. The report said most of these people live in South and West Asia, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and nearly two of every three people are women.

Reading and writing are essential skills for today's world.

Literacy expands people's choices, gives them more control over their lives, increases their ability to participate in society and enhances self-esteem," said Mbumba's statement which also mentioned that Namcol attracts from 25 000 to 30 000 learners.

Speaking at the same event, the Vice President of the Southern African Chapter of the Forum of African Parliamentarians for Education (FAPED) and member of the Namibian Parliament, Elia George Kaiyamo praised Dr Sam Nujoma, saying the former president has shown the nation the way to independence.

"When you follow leaders such as Nujoma then you follow the right people who provide good examples to the nation. One never gets too old to learn, tatekulu Nujoma has just done it at the age of 80," said Kaiyamo.

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