Take responsibility for your life

FRITZ H DAUSAB, WORRIED PARENT AND EDUCATOR WRITES:Teaching was an art . . .The art of taking unruly children, through patience and dedication and moulding them into young adults that could dream, follow orders and work hard to achieve their own dreams. Our current education system and civil rights in Namibia, apart from Apartheid legacies before and after independence, will haunt the Namibian lost children for the next two or three generations.The introduction of the Cambridge system, with added liberal rights of freedom for our children, has introduced our children to a system differentiated from their parents and elders. This a system which granted freedoms where our children is spoon-fed a diet of no rules and non-accountability at school level.School standards have been dropped in the Namibian public school system to accommodate the lazy child, who refuses to work to become competent. We as adults and the system have failed in our duties to instill the love for reading, working to achieve and the pride in a job well done.The Executive Director in the Ministry of Education should inform children urgently that the freedoms of education comes with the responsibility of good manners, willingness to achieve excellence and obedience to teachers, who gives up countless hours without pay to assist them to become educated and well-rounded people in society.Even though Namibia is one country, school children from the North, according to teachers who schooled and taught at such schools, are treated very leniently and given chances to finish their school careers at all costs. Far removed from our children in the South who are removed by the education system when reaching 18 and not progressing. In an independent Namibia, in the Namibian House, this situation needs to be revisited and all children treated the same.PROTECTIONFurthermore, our children are at risk of not completing school due to social evils of shebeens and clubs.Shebeens and other types of businesses have invaded our quiet residential neighbourhoods. Licenses for selling liquor is given out without any responsibility from local municipalities. The police can only do so much about noise levels till late and the regulating of liquor selling times as they must perform their duties within the stipulated rules and laws. Children are raised in the negative environment of jukeboxes blaring out music at high volume till two every night 24/7. When do people who work rest? Or children study in peace and silence?Who will take responsibility for our children if shebeens are our next-door neighbours? Who do we as parents call about disturbances if the police are always without vehicles, or if local authorities give their blessing to shebeens? If drunks can consume alcohol on the streets?When children under 18 are served alcohol by same unscrupulous owners of alcohol outlets. We never hear or read about a business being closed for selling alcohol to school children.What type of society do we live in where no one takes responsibility, first for the laws that allows shebeens in residential areas; then for no action being taken against shebeens or businesses that sell alcohol to underaged children.THE LOST GENERATIONThe lost generation, born after 2000, do not want to live under any rules and think the world owes them everything.Some children start drinking at 13, have unprotected sex and do not have any respect for parents or teachers. Children talk during assembly and in classes, do not do any homework, fail tests and exams and always have an excuse. Parents dump their responsibilities to instill manners in their children on underpaid teachers. Some kids think shiny shoes and fake jewellery is the achievement of their lives, forgetting that only through hard work can they achieve riches and respect.How do we protect our children from these vices?Everything starts at home. Children must come equipped with all materials, love and manners needed to excel at school. A teacher’s job is to teach and groom these children into capable young adults, who can obey commands but are able to think critically about life and for themselves.Laws at local government level should ban shebeens in residential areas and there must be frequent and visible policing in our neighbourhoods.Lastly, our children should have bigger dreams than using alcohol and protesting about hairstyles, smokebreaks or separate toilets at school. They must concentrate on how education can set them free.EMPLOYMENTI believe that the current stagnant stage of our development as a nation is at the heart of our children having a careless attitude about their lives.How do we as educators instill a vision in the Namibian child if SWAPO government policies failed to develop Namibia into a viable economy? One ready to absorb school leavers and university, VTC and technicon graduates into working society. Employment opportunities would have enabled stronger families with love, respect and values.SWAPO must take responsibility for their failures, such as corruption at highest echelons of power. When the SME Bank money was stolen there was no accountability from SWAPO. This institution could have assisted our young and enabled entrepreneurs with much needed capital to advance their own dreams and create employment in Namibia.In conclusion: Namibian child, you are on your own. Unless your change your attitude at school and home. When you stop to be lazy and strive to be the best you can be - we the teachers - will be by your side.

Take responsibility for your life

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Republikein 2025-09-18

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Take responsibility for your life

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Republikein 2025-09-18

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