Shacks and huts for a school hostel

ELIASER NDEYANALE, SONJA SMITH and TIMO SHIHEPOTHE time is 08h30 and 15-year-old Bertha Hanghombe is preparing breakfast close to the tiny shack she erected at the Oshamukweni Combined School premises, when arrived.

Hanghombe is one of the 47 pupils living in makeshift accommodation they put up inside the school premises.

Located 34km east of Okongo in Ohangwena region, Oshamukweni school lacks proper infrastructure with some pupils being taught inside shacks.

Narrating her daily struggles, Hanghombe said she hails from Okakango village in the Ohangwena region.

She says she decided to stay at the school due to the long distance from her village.

“If I leave home at 05h00, I will reach school at 09h00,” she told The Namibian with a timid look.

She added that her parents cannot afford to build her proper accommodation because they are both unemployed.

The principal, Werner Nangolo, said the school hostel, which is a combination of traditional huts and shacks, only accommodates pupils from far-away villages.

Nangolo said pupils, including Grade 1s, sleep on crude beds made from sticks. Their ages range from seven and 11 years.

He said some pupils cannot afford to buy food, and the school and teachers assist. The school also does not have access to clean water and electricity.

Nangolo came to the school in March 2020 from Kunene region. He said the situation is not new to the school which mostly caters for San and other vulnerable children.

“The education director and inspector know about our situation. In 2009, pupils camped in tents outside the school yard but after the director visited, he decided they should be accommodated inside the school.

“The director thought it was dangerous for them to be outside,” Nangolo said.

Nangolo, however, said he does not blame the government or the parents for the deplorable conditions in which the children live.

“The initiative for pupils to live on the school premises came from the parents and we thank them for that,” he added.

“We want to put up better structures for the children but there is nothing in our account. We only have N$2 000 or N$3 000 for ink cartridges.

“Our children sleep on stick beds. Those [past teachers] who have been here say this is better. We are planning to fix 50 beds that Oshela Secondary School donated to us so that our children could start using them. They also gave us 100 old mattresses,” he said.

Nangolo said that Namsov also came to their aid in July 2020 with a 30 mattress donation.

He added that Swapo Party Youth League secretary for education Hofni Ipinge had promised to assist the school with better accommodation but he has not been able to honour that obligation.

He said although the school gets a grant from the government every year, it is not allowed to use it to construct classrooms or hostels.

“There are rules and regulations on how to spend the money,” he said.

He expressed a wish that money allegedly paid to former cabinet ministers Bernard Esau and Sacky Shanghala and their co-accused in the Fishrot scandal was used to build a hostel at the school.

For Ndapewoshali Kandjungu, sending her children to school at Oshamukweni is an ever-present grim reminder of how hard life at the village is.

Kandjungu is one of the many parents with children attending Oshamukweni school.

Seven of her children have attended the school while four moved on to other schools.

During an interview with , she said although the education at the school is ‘good’, she fails to understand how the government allows children to attend classes in such a deplorable environment, 30 years after independence.

Kandjungu urged the government to build a proper hostel to give children a conducive learning environment.

Ipinge told on Monday that he has learnt of the school’s predicament in June last year and he had forwarded the principal’s letter and supporting documents to the education ministry and to the Office of the Prime Minister.

“Still, no one came back to me and we are still waiting,” he said.