Not Just University Degrees, But Also Vocational Training

It has come to my attention that vocational institutions play a major role in the development in our country. Let me prove it here.

The time has come for us to progress beyond merely discussing increased access to education, advocating increased funding and demanding elevated inputs. The time has come to implement the recommendations of the numerous studies we carried out in the last decade.

Our focus should now be on outcomes, effectiveness and generating more value from the resources available for vocational education and training.

One of the many obstacles Namibia faces to stimulate economic growth is a scarcity of skilled labour. The establishment of a sustainable skills base is and will remain a huge challenge in the foreseeable future. The challenge is exacerbated by a lack of human capital development opportunities and the mismatch between the supply and demand sides of our labour market.

Then, of course, there is the challenge to continuously ensure that education and training we provide is current, demand-driven and relevant as well as forward looking to ensure skills for emerging market.

There is an urgent need to increase the middle and high level skills of the Namibian people and at the same time, a need to expand access to basic skills training. Simultaneously, we have to provide helpful programmes for the bulky number of pupils who leave school and do not have the necessary qualifications to enter the world of work.

We face the daunting task of achieving the objectives of technical and vocational education through equitable, relevant and good superiority education and training.

However, the government is terribly aware of these challenges and has steadfastly armour-plated the expansion, diversification and modernisation of vocational education and training. The ministry acknowledges and supports the key role that technical vocational education and training play in providing the skills for a modernised economy while promoting social inclusion and addressing the high levels of youth unemployment in the country.

Skills development is a key constituent of an incorporated employment generation and poverty alleviation approach. Therefore, our macro-national development strategy, Vision 2030, ascribes a high premium to the development and implementation of targeted programmes to upkeep the development of local skills as a tool for individual empowerment and national economic development.

Namibia necessitates a solid and supportable skills base to transmute it into an industrialised and knowledge-based economy. However, agreement of the skills challenges of today as well as those of the future needs new ways of alliance among all of the relevant players involved in technical and vocational education, and increased and intensified collaboration at national, regional and trans-national levels. Salute vocational training!