Lack of Afrikaans pushes children out of school

Many children are dropping out at Nabasib Primary School in the Hardap Region because the school only offers two languages?Khoekhoekowab and English. This is despite the education ministry’s decision in March last year that the mother tongue must be used as medium of instruction from pre-primary to Grade 5. According to Ragel Coetzee, an elderly woman who lives with her grandchildren, three of them have been forced out of school because their home language is Afrikaans. “My grandchildren performed very poorly and had to drop out of school. The one girl could not manage and dropped out and has now even fallen pregnant,” said Coetzee. Coetzee said the nearest school that offers Afrikaans is Rietoog but parents are reluctant to put their children in a hostel because they are too young to be on their own. She added that some of the children went back home complaining that they were forced to do laundry for older children in the hostel. “It is our farm, but we are now being inconvenienced because of this. Many people around here cannot afford to send their children to the hostel at Rietoog,” she said. According to her, a 14-year-old dropped out of school because the education directorate in the region promised five years ago that Afrikaans would be re-introduced. “He is now a grown man and has not gone to school because they just give us excuses every beginning of the year,” she said. According to Coetzee, who is the guardian of her grandchildren, the ones who started with Khoekhoekowab at the Nabasib Primary School are struggling with their school work. “Some of them are not even smart enough so now they also suffer with the language barrier,” she said. When contacted for comment, Minister of Education Arts and Culture Katrina Hanse-Himarwa said she cannot comment on this matter. “I must refer you to my personal assistant, I cannot comment on this,” she said. The personal assistant, Timotheus Mutambo, referred Namibian Sun to the Education Director of the Hardap Region, Mzingisi Gqwede. Gqwede, however, abruptly cut the phone call saying he is “in a meeting”. Hanse-Himarwa’s predecessor, David Namwandi, last year informed the public that the medium of instruction in the junior primary phase would be the mother tongue or predominant local language. NABASIB JEMIMA BEUKES