Education in Namibia
The geographic location of Namibia is along the southwestern coast of Africa. The countries bordering Namibia are Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the southeast and south. Namibia has 977 mi long coastline. The Atlantic Ocean lies to the west of Namibia. The Walvis Bay which was earlier administered by South Africa was reincorporated into Namibia on March 1, 1994.
Ten years of education from standard 1 to 10 is compulsory in Namibia. The children in the age group of 6 to 16 years attend compulsory education. Primary education takes 7 years to complete; the duration of secondary education is 5 years. According to one estimate, in the year 1998 there were 400,325 children enrolled in primary schools and 115,237 were enrolled in secondary schools. The pupil-teacher ratio at the primary level was estimated at 32 to 1 in 1999. In the same year, 80% of primary-school-age children were enrolled in school, while 34% of those eligible attended secondary school.
Namibia has an academy of territory education for providing necessary teaching to adult people. Projected adult illiteracy rates for the year 2000 stand at 17.9% (males, 17.1%; females, 18.8%). As of 1999, public expenditure on education was estimated at 8% of GDP. The number of students getting enrolled in post secondary education is also on the rise. In 1995, 11,344 students attended tertiary educational institutes, 61% of whom were female.
In 2011 the Namibian education system accommodated approximately 600,000 learners of which 174,000 were senior secondary students and below 10,000 were pre-primary students.
Namibia joined UNESCO on November 2, 1978. Namibia is covered by UNESCO office in Windhoek, which has played a significant role in making regional policy for the fight against the HIV and AIDS in South Africa. In 2002, Namibia in association with UNESCO led a project on HIV and AIDS prevention education. This two-year initiative allowed school teachers to be trained and also allowed school syllabuses to be adapted to the issues linked to the pandemic.
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