Salomo Ndeyamunye ya Ndeshimona

A mechanical breakdown is noted by the number of obsolete cars in his garden. A doctor’s failure is found in the graveyard, while a teacher’s failure is seen in the number of young people wandering the streets.

While these illustrations of failure are all debatable, in this opinion piece I will leave that debate for another day. Let me focus on one teacher’s fiasco.

The number of young people on the streets is partly due to the failure of teachers, parents and the education system.

I am going to examine one of the reasons why our young people hang out in the streets and not in the university today. The reason for this is the lack of career guidance in our school. A career choice is made by the student himself, but the teacher and the parent play a role in inspiring and guiding this choice.

In the past, parents and society played a role in career choice, but today it is more or less the same, but the blame lies more with the teacher and the system they serve. A teacher can influence this choice through education, modeling and job fairs.

In many schools across Namibia, job fairs are hoisted regionally, by higher education institutions. Too bad that some regions like Oshikoto have no university and even less VTC. However, it is done late, as is the case for learners from the 9th year. Learners in grades 10-12 have already chosen a field of study which, in turn, will inform career choice.

So we have to revise the strategy and do it earlier. Nowadays, many areas of study in many schools were influenced by the qualifications of the teachers who were in that school before the curriculum review in 2015/6. Some schools that previously offered up to grade 10 only, have had the option of offering grades 10 and 11, where a learner must choose three major subjects to add to math and two languages, which are supposed to be the backbone of their domain. education and career choice.

Some schools have found themselves offering only one or two areas of study, thus limiting the options for the learner in that specific school.

This is due to the levels of education and qualifications of teachers available. Other schools have found themselves adding so-called complementary subjects which are far from any existing careers in Namibian universities, as they have teachers available for these subjects.

Teachers have not had the opportunity to be transferred or to move to schools where they can be better used and easily facilitate the choice of fields of study.

This has therefore led many learners to finish their 11th and 12th grades and end up on the streets for three or four years, to take NAMCOL to acquire one or two subjects which could help inform their career choice, or to make a career that they have no interest and passion, just to keep them busy and off the streets.

This has many consequences and can easily affect the student, causing some to find themselves changing courses midway, just as they have no basis to stand ready and call a career. This is also what has led many students to study to become teachers, as it is the only option available.

This has therefore lowered our standards of education, making the teaching career a stepping stone for many and leading to an oversupply of teachers in the system we know today. It is for this reason that the failure rate is high, because we have teachers who have no passion for teaching. In addition, the high number of graduates and school dropouts have led to high crime rates, high pregnancy rates, prostitution, illegal trade and drug use, just as many young people try to earn a living in these Difficult conditions.

The author is therefore of the opinion that job fairs should be organized earlier, from grades 6 and 7, to help the learner choose. Parents need to be educated so they can facilitate this from home. Higher education institutions should invest in career guidance manuals that can be widely shared so that more and more people can access them, including those without internet access.

Life skills teachers should be more empowered and should take their role seriously in ensuring they know and understand the importance of making a career choice earlier in life for these poor learners in our country. Both departments should partner with media houses to have career supplements as part of their publication, most epically in print, but also through other means such as digital.

Both Ministries of Education should make it a priority that the job fair be widely broadcast to all corners of the country, and that higher education institutions partner to have satellite or even combined offices in each region. policy to disseminate information as much as possible. .

In this way, educators can easily be helped to reduce the mortality of students who wander the streets aimlessly and hopelessly, or so I will submit.