One nation in education

Yochanaan Coetzee



“I’m passionate about education, so much so that I sometimes think we sometime take learning for granted.

“We used to teach under trees, sharing what we had around a table. Some of us still do… but we’ve come a long, long way,” said veteran educator and principal of Eros Primary School, Jacobina Hamata, during a candid interview at NMH Studios.

“However, this crisis, and this project, have brought us right back to that spirit of everyone doing anything in the name of education,” she said.

Unprecedented times

The economic, health and education sectors were some of first societal foundations to be rocked by the pandemic’s catastrophic kick in the face. So much progress delayed, and a lack of equitable progress, once again laid shockingly bare.

Now, more than ever, it was time for the public and private sectors to consolidate resources and quickly find sustainable methods to ensure education continues for all.

“In this process of Covid, when we learned that children will not be taught in schools, and that we must find ways of assisting them to learn at home, the first thing that came to mind was, how do we reach everybody?”

The power of the press

When the pandemic hit, the battle of betterment became a war of worth, with those unable to access remote learning portals left to little more than their parents’ or their own devices.

“I remember the first time when the team from NMH arrived at my mother-in-law’s village and the people there were sharing about this development and one child remarked that she never knew that one could receive an exercise book in the newspaper,” Hamata said.

She added that access to learning material can be often be hampered simply because parents cannot afford it.

“They are simply excluded,” she said.

“But how ignorant were we that we could provide these materials for free using mass media, like we did during these Covid times?”

All hands, in every corner

The process of getting these booklets produced, standardised, quality-assured and distributed called for a monumental effort from people at every level of society and in every corner of the country.

“Beyond the teams from the ministry of education, NMH and all the internal stakeholders, it was incredible to see how farmers, lodge owners, councillors and anyone one who was able to assist in getting these booklets to the furthest corners of the country chipped in, offered the vehicles, fuel and time make sure every child in country was able to access these materials,” she added.

This, she said, brought us right back to the basics, when learning and living followed the adage that it takes a village to raise a child.

“Even the least expected person you could think of became part and parcel of this project without us thinking that was what would happen. The collective effort and resultant impact were just astonishing.

“And I will never forget the smiles of the faces of my mother-in-law, the children, the councillor and community members, beaming with what we, together, had achieved in the name of our children’s education.

“That speaks volumes of the Namibian nation and how effective we can be, just to bring education to everybody,” she concluded.