Education director denies handpicking candidates
28 November 2019 | Education
Ohangwena education director Isak Hamatwi has rejected claims of unfair recruitment of school principals.
The regional education directorate had shortlisted nine candidates from a pool of 120 applicants for eight vacancies.
The recruitment was done during the last school term at schools such as Ohaindongo, Mahangu, Omahenge and Enyana.
Critics claimed it was unfair to invite only nine applicants for interviews.
“For the process to be fair, they were supposed to invite as many candidates as possible to each school and interview them. Now, if the successful candidate cannot take up the position due to other reasons, who will replace them? We would like the process to be redone and make it fair enough,” one critic said.
When contacted, the regional deputy chairperson of the Namibia National Teachers Union (Nantu), Shaalukeni Darius, referred Namibian Sun to the chairperson, George Hafilwa, who declined to comment, saying the complaint had not reached his office.
The Ohangwena education director, Isak Hamatwi, denied that candidates were “handpicked” for the vacant positions.
“We received 120 applications for these eight positions. All these 120 applicants were invited for a written test interview. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a complex situation after the nine best candidates were shortlisted at every school, because they had all applied to all the schools,” Hamatwi said.
He said there would be no point in interviewing each of them eight times, once for each vacancy.
“If we were to interview them school by school, we would just sit with the same people at all the schools, answering the same questions. We therefore decided to interview them just once. This does not mean they were handpicked for positions,” he said.
Hamatwi said in the interest of fairness the personnel office had assigned a number to each applicant who did the written interview so that the markers could not know whose scripts they were marking.
ILENI NANDJATO
The regional education directorate had shortlisted nine candidates from a pool of 120 applicants for eight vacancies.
The recruitment was done during the last school term at schools such as Ohaindongo, Mahangu, Omahenge and Enyana.
Critics claimed it was unfair to invite only nine applicants for interviews.
“For the process to be fair, they were supposed to invite as many candidates as possible to each school and interview them. Now, if the successful candidate cannot take up the position due to other reasons, who will replace them? We would like the process to be redone and make it fair enough,” one critic said.
When contacted, the regional deputy chairperson of the Namibia National Teachers Union (Nantu), Shaalukeni Darius, referred Namibian Sun to the chairperson, George Hafilwa, who declined to comment, saying the complaint had not reached his office.
The Ohangwena education director, Isak Hamatwi, denied that candidates were “handpicked” for the vacant positions.
“We received 120 applications for these eight positions. All these 120 applicants were invited for a written test interview. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a complex situation after the nine best candidates were shortlisted at every school, because they had all applied to all the schools,” Hamatwi said.
He said there would be no point in interviewing each of them eight times, once for each vacancy.
“If we were to interview them school by school, we would just sit with the same people at all the schools, answering the same questions. We therefore decided to interview them just once. This does not mean they were handpicked for positions,” he said.
Hamatwi said in the interest of fairness the personnel office had assigned a number to each applicant who did the written interview so that the markers could not know whose scripts they were marking.
ILENI NANDJATO
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