Plugging education's holes

Parents, teachers, school boards and the private sector can help soften the blow of the cost-cutting measures implemented at schools because of budget cuts.

One of the savings that will be made is a reduction of the universal primary and secondary education grants to N$250 per pupil.

The education ministry aims to save up to N$160 million with cuts of 45.5% at primary schools and 50% at secondary schools.

“While we are cognisant of the challenges and hardships schools may experience due to the received allocations, we are working very hard to ensure that each school works closely with their school boards, parents and learners to spend funds in a sound and prudent manner,” education permanent secretary Sanet Steenkamp said last week.

She added that the reductions were not cast in stone. Should any funds be made available during the mid-term budget review, restoring the grants would be prioritised.

Other cost-cutting measures include doing away with relief teachers when staff go on study leave.

“It was requested that the regional directors should ensure that internal arrangements are made to substitute a staff member going on study leave, with no additional financial implications to the government,” Steenkamp said. She said study leave that had been approved last year would remain in place. She pointed out that the ministry had introduced an in-service diploma in junior primary education, paid for by the ministry, that was aimed at teacher development.

She said there were various ways teachers could upgrade their skills, including long-distance or part-time studies.

The ministry has also cut back on expenses such as travel allowances and overtime and instructed schools to reduce water and electricity usage.

Regional directorates have been instructed to revise all contracts to determine where costs could be cut, and schools must eliminate non-essential spending.



Everyone should pitch in

Steenkamp said the ministry implored school managers and teachers to ensure they could account for every cent.

Although mandatory school fees had been abolished, parents and the private sector could help in a number of ways, she said.

She said voluntary contributions, whether financial or in kind, were welcome. “All these funds will be accounted for and approved for usage and the budgeting is done by the school board,” she said, referring to donations or fundraising campaigns.



Textbooks

Steenkamp did not respond directly to a question whether schools had been instructed to reduce textbook-to-learner ratios in order to cut costs, but confirmed that over the past few years textbook ratios had been improved from one book per three students to one book per student at some schools.





She said the ordering of textbooks was based on each school's needs. “In the long run, schools are able to order adequate learning materials.”

Nevertheless, the ministry had noticed that some schools were unable to reach the 1:1 ratio because they ordered textbooks with different titles each year, “leading to the side-lining of the existing learning materials that could be ideally used as relevant reference or resource materials.”

Moreover, vandalism of textbooks by learners was a concern.

In 2015, the ministry purchased more than a million textbooks, including new textbooks for the revised senior primary curriculum.

In 2016, the ministry procured 627 282 textbooks, spending more than N$102 million during the 2015/16 financial year and more than N$79 million during the 2016/17 financial year on textbooks.

JANA-MARI SMITH