Building education: Brick by brick

Jo-Maré Duddy – To successfully implement curriculum reform in Namibia’s education sector, the country needs 1 532 new classrooms, 1 712 more toilets, 280 additional hostels, 62 new special education classrooms, 52 more workshops and 11 new dining halls by 2021.The price tag for this ambitious project exceeds N$1.95 billion, the deputy executive director in the ministry of education, arts and culture, Knox Imbuwa, told the recent annual construction conference.The majority of this investment is available for local contractors, Imbuwa said during his presentation, focussing on opportunities for the sector.The maiden conference was initiated by the Construction Industries Federation (CIF) as an intervention to help revive the ailing industry, which is in its fourth consecutive year of recession.The current state of construction has not “only tragic personal consequences, but also has disastrous consequences for Namibia’s future”, CIF president Nico Badenhorst said at the conference.Scary figuresMoney pumped into roads construction plummeted by 27% between 2016 – when government embarked on its current policy of fiscal consolidation – and 2018, Badenhorst said. Investment in building construction nose-dived by the same percentage.Since 2015, the industry has recorded an average annual contraction of 12%, he said.The impact of employment has been staggering. A CIF survey in 2017 showed 8 160 people worked in construction before September 2016. By the end of August 2017, the figure was 4 303 – a drop of 3 857 or 47%.3 857 jobs on average sustain about four people, therefore more than 15 000 people’s lives were impacted negatively within a year of construction’s unabated slump.Nearly 70% of respondents in a CIF survey in June 2017 indicated that they were “scaling down to the minimum”, while 5.7% described their state of business as dormant. About 2.3% said they were closing shop and 1.7% responded that they were bankrupt.For less than 11%, it was business as usual.By the end of December 2017, the business-as-usual response stood at only 6.7%. More than 8% closed their business, 18% were dormant and 3.3% were bankrupt.CIF membership has fallen from a peak of 481 companies in 2015 to 292 last year, Badenhorst said.In 2014, 48% of CIF members were small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Now it is 24%, he said.“The current developments are really very destabilising for our industry,” Badenhorst said. “Capacity that has been carefully and tenaciously build over the years, is lost.”The current state of affairs is characterised by the emigration of professionals, disinvestments and massive opportunity costs, he added.Unlocking schoolsAccording to Imbuwa, the education system currently has to cater for 781 380 learners in total. The country has 1 897 schools and 25 533 teaching facilities. Of the latter, 2 200 are permanent structures, 1 400 pre-fabricated, 1 900 traditional and 209 structures are hired from institutions like churches.Although education receives the biggest share of the national budget – nearly 22% in 2019/20 – the bulk of the money (95%) has to pay for operational expenditure. Of this, the payroll alone consumes more than 75%.Most of education’s budget is “hand to mouth”, Imbuwa said. The ministry still feels that is underfunded when it comes to capital funding. The about 4% of the budget available for capital development is “quite very minimal”, he said.According to Imbuwa, the ministry currently has about 44 capital projects on its books. When sub-projects are taken into account, the number increases to 119 active projects. The total cost estimate for this is around N$19.1 billion. The ministry gets an annual capital allocation of about N$550 million.Enrolment, however, increases at an average annual pace of between 3% and 3.5%, Imbuwa said. This means infrastructure has to increase.Curriculum reformNamibia’s curriculum reforms brings its own set of challenges.Government is currently in its third phase of implementation, Imbuwa said. Junior secondary reforms were implemented this year, with senior secondary – grades 11 and 12 – scheduled for next year.This has an implication for the junior secondary phase. “Grade 10 learners that would normally drop out of school because they did not make the requisite number of points to proceed grade 11 are expected to remain in the system with the new curriculum. That means we need to provide space for these learners.”“I think coming next year, we’ll have a huge problem with that,” Imbuwa said.Billion-dollar reformThe estimated cost of implementing education reform is N$1.9 billion, he said.“We are still looking for funding. Part of the funding has been availed. That means that we have to find how we are to accommodate the bigger needs of our learners,” Imbuwa told the conference.The ministry’s current capital budget of more than N$600 million was cut to about N$527 million in the recent mid-year budget review. According to Imbuwa, “this practically covers the ongoing projects”.“We hope we will be given the N$735 million for next year to bring about the infrastructure communicated,” he said.In addition to the curriculum reform, government is also busy with the Education and Training Quality Improvement Programme (ETQIP), which is supported by the African Development Bank (AfDB). The project, which started in March 2018, will run for five years.Funding consists of an AfDB loan of N$1 billion, while government will contribute N$405.1 million from its own coffers. Of this, N$400 million had to be earmarked for open international bidding, but the rest is available for local bidding, Imbuwa said.The project has three legs: Basic education infrastructure improvement which involves the renovation and upgrading 17 schools across all 14 regions of the country, including the national library and archives.Bidding has already been invited for 14 of these schools, Imbuwa said. With the national library and archives, the ministry had to follow a two-tier procurement process as stipulated by AfDB rules, he said. This requires that, for projects of N$54 million and above, an open international bidding process is followed. Projects below that amount are available for national bidding, he said.Leg two of ETQIP involves the renovation of two vocational and training centres (VTCs) – one in Zambezi and the Khai-khanagab centre in Mariental – as well as the construction of one new VTC at Keetmanshoop. Bids for Mariental have been invited.The last leg of ETQIP comprises of infrastructure development for the University of Namibia (UNAM).Challenges“In education you need to know what to do, when to do it and who has to do that,” Imbuwa said.One of the challenges faced by the ministry is “that we start projects that do not see the end - that we would be building a school for more than a year or even going into four years”. “When those who are entrusted with responsibility to assist with, for example, the construction of these infrastructures are found wanting, it is important that we take decisive action,” he said.According to Imbuwa, “we find ourselves being overcharged to build simple infrastructures such as classrooms”. Issues of poor workmanship from the contractors, especially the SMEs “are very common in our projects”. “We also regrettably have recorded some SMEs that were awarded bids, only to end up forfeiting those,” he said.“Education is a process with a shared responsibility and progress thereof can only be sustained through common efforts by all relevant stakeholders,” Imbuwa said.

Building education: Brick by brick

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