Shangula challenges World Bank on‘poor health, education sectors’ – More Top Stories

Minister of health and social services Kalumbi Shangula has challenged a World Bank report released last week saying Namibia’s education and health sectors are poor.

The minister on Thursday said the report incorrectly classifies Namibia as an upper-middle-income nation.

The United Nations’ development, population fund and project services agencies last year confirmed that Namibia has retained its upper middle-income status and reputation of peaceful coexistence and political stability.

This status remained due to Namibia’s extractive industry being the greatest contributor to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

In its country partnership framework for Namibia, the international lender says there is a need to address the relatively poor performance of public services in education and health, despite significant investment.

Shangula, however, said the framework is premised on the misclassification of Namibia as an upper middle-income nation.

This comes after the African Development Bank in its 2024 Country Focus Report stated Namibia’s upper middle-income country classification keeps it from receiving external financing. Shangula said the healthcare industry has inadequate available human resources.

“Human resources are critical for the operations of the ministry. Inadequate provision of the required number and fit-for-purpose human resources has resulted in patients and clients not receiving services timely and the burnout of health service providers,” he said.

Shangula said they have taken deliberate steps to train and deploy healthcare providers.

Kalumbi Shangula

“This month alone, the ministry has recruited 40 doctors for Oshakati Intermediate Hospital alone,” he said.

He said all hospitals will get additional doctors, nurses, pharmacists and staff for other job categories to improve service delivery.

“As the population increases and the disease profile changes, more health workers continue to be required.” Shangula acknowledged that the framework indicated significant poverty reduction and increased access to essential services.

“The document affirms great progress in HIV prevention and management.

It pointed to a significant decline in under-five mortality of 11.5%, though neonatal mortality remains unchanged,” he said.

Private Schools Association head Colette Riekert last week said she agrees with the report on slow progression through basic education, a lack of regular learning assessments, the low use of technology and insufficient infrastructure.

[“The most important thing is this automatic progression that doesn’t work for me, where a pupil does not have the necessary skills he should have mastered in a particular grade and then he’s automatically transferred to the following grade, which he does not deserve,” she said. [Riekert said this can be addressed in grades 1 to 3.

“When the pupils are just starting their learning process, you address it for life, because then they can read better,” she said.

“I’ve seen pupils up to grades 8 and 9 who can’t really read and write, but then they’re going through the system and they’re just going out of the system again,” she said.

Riekert recommended the continued assessment and professional development of teachers.

“Very often the problem is not the fact that there’s no teacher, but the teacher is not in class because they are absent. Very often it’s not even recorded,” she said.

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