Education in dire straits
To combat Namibia’s growing early-grade literacy and numeracy crisis, government has rolled out several targeted interventions aimed at reversing alarming education outcomes.The Ministry of Education has significantly expanded its foundational learning programmes, including the Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar literacy initiatives, which now reach over 90 000 learners and more than 7 000 teachers in all 14 regions.
So far this year, nearly 2 700 Grade 3 teachers and more than 200 heads of department have received training, backed by an investment of over N$4 million in materials and capacity building.
On the numeracy front, a new numeracy roadmap has been introduced in collaboration with Nepad and Unicef. The strategy sets out curriculum reforms, strengthened teacher development, better instructional tools and improved school and regional leadership to improve mathematics proficiency in early grades.
The ministry is also advancing inclusive learning by developing decodable readers in 11 local languages and creating a phonics-based app for deaf children, in partnership with the Namibian National Association of the Deaf.
Billions invested
President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has reaffirmed Namibia’s financial commitment to tackling the education crisis, highlighting the N$24.8 billion allocated to the education ministry, amounting to 23.4% of the national budget and 8.9% of GDP. “This exceeds both the 20% budget and 6% GDP targets under SDG4,” she said.
More than N$12 billion annually will go toward pre-primary and primary education under the current medium-term expenditure framework.
Despite these efforts, several challenges remain.
Education minister Sanet Steenkamp acknowledged persistent issues such as the high cost of teacher training, delays in the distribution of learning materials and inconsistent implementation of key interventions.
The urgency of these interventions follows the release of the 2024 national standardised assessment, which revealed that 70% of Grade 3 learners are unable to read a simple sentence or perform basic arithmetic.
Wobbly foundations
The results highlight what Steenkamp termed a “foundational literacy and numeracy emergency”. Only 32% of learners passed numeracy with scores above 40%, and just 5% scored over 75%.
Critical skills such as counting, comparing numbers and understanding place value remain problematic, with 82% of learners unable to count correctly, 62% unable to compare numbers and 70% struggling with place value concepts up to 999.
Literacy results were similarly bleak.
Just 28% of learners passed the reading component and only 3% scored above 75%. Most struggled with basic decoding and letter recognition, including confusion between commonly reversed letters such as 'b' and 'd'.
“These figures confirm that we are indeed dealing with a foundational education emergency,” Steenkamp warned. “If we do not act urgently, we risk raising a generation unable to fully participate in society or the economy.”
“This is not just an education issue – it is a national emergency,” Steenkamp said. “We must invest in our children to ensure that every child can read, reason and thrive.”