2.6 Inclusive Education policy in Southern African countries
2.6.2 Inclusive Education in Namibia
It is noticeable that whilst Namibia and South Africa share similar historical factors in terms of political oppression suffered from the same regime, the two countries seem to have followed different interests and direction post-independence. While South Africa aggressively sought redress in many aspects of life including education (Bhengu, 2013), Namibians did not seem to have considered Inclusive Education policy as important or urgent. In that regard Zimba, Mowels and Naanda (2007) maintain that there was nothing prepared for awareness on policy whenever there were meetings. The society was more
29 concerned with the failures of children in Grade 10 and Grade 12 without the necessary understanding of the underlying causes of such failures (Zimba, Mowels & Naanda, 2007).
These scholars further argue that the concept of Inclusive Education policy was not well understood by most Namibians.
2.6.2.1 Challenges encountered in implementing the policy on inclusive education
Despite the accomplishments mentioned above, there were challenges which prevented learners with special needs to achieve their full potential and which contributed to their social exclusion (Stofile, 2008). Access to both special classes and special schools were limited.
Special learning needs were yet to be addressed. Access of children with special needs to education lagged behind the general increase in enrolment. Mutorwa (2004) commented on restructuring of education system that will accommodate all learners including those with diverse educational needs. Mutorwa (2004) argues that the policy was designed to address the inequalities in the provision of education so that people with disabilities can benefit. There were few schools to accommodate learners with disabilities. High enrolment was found to be a challenge where infrastructure was limited. Teacher training and support was also found a challenge when teachers had to teach Inclusive classes without having undergone training (Haitembu, 2014).
Teachers‟ attitudes towards Inclusive Education policy and learners with special needs were also a challenge. Having shared what these scholars are saying about challenges encountered in Namibia, my view is that the main challenge can be attributed to the view expressed by Zimba, Mowels and Naanda (2007). I believe that without a political will, little can be done.
In the context of Namibia, it appears that senior leadership may not have begun to take this issue seriously for them to even think about legislating on this important subject. Therefore this says implementation of the policy in Namibia had challenges.
2.6.2.2 Strategies introduced to overcome challenges
The strategies adopted by the government of Namibia can be divided into three. The first has to do with legislative framework. The second has to do with curriculum development and the third one has to do with teacher training. These three strategies are discussed below.
30 2.6.2.2.1 Legislative framework
The Ministry of Education undertook a comprehensive education reform process that was aimed at access, equity, democracy and lifelong learning as principal means of investing in human capital to promote socio-economic development (Ontario, 2009). The reform process would enable government to respond to challenges of the 21st century and development of a knowledge – based society, thus becoming a driving force of what is contained in the Vision 2030 National Document that of education as a priority. In 2009, the Deputy Minister of Education launched an education project called Edulink as a way of supporting the concept of Inclusive Education policy. Hailer (2009) find that the Minister of Education approved and continued to support number of legislations in support of inclusion through projects such as Education For All (EFA), the Education and Training sector Improvement Programme, Education Sector Policy on Orphans and Vulnerable Children and Draft National Policy on Inclusive Education to show government commitment to Inclusive education policy.
National Policy on Inclusive Education had been drafted and the Education Management Information System (EMIS) was revised to include all data on various disabilities in which Namibians sign language had been added as another home language and medium of instruction in the Annual Census Forms. EMIS 2007 reported the number of learners with specific disabilities receiving education in mainstream schools. Almost 28 000 learners with mild to severe disabilities were recorded. This enabled the Ministry to plan and budget for these learners (Kupolo, 2010). Namibia like Lesotho encountered challenges in the implementation of the policy.
The Ministry of Education has identified two main areas of development in order to have policy implemented. The first has to do with a whole range of issues from the provision of material resources and systems of human resources deployment to issues of finances and training. The second one is dedicated to human resources development. These two broad areas are briefly discussed in the next two paragraphs.
Numerous challenges have been identified in the previous sections and some strategies to address them have been identified. The first one is the provision of improved teacher training and classroom support; a realistic learner-teacher ratio; improved classroom technology to support Inclusive learning. Besides these, other items such as more accessible physical school
31 environment and the entire reform of the education systems have been mooted. As a result, there is an urgent need to allocate specific funds and separate funds for all activities linked to realising the concept of Inclusive Education in order to remove existing barriers. For any success in this regard, there needs to be a political will and decisiveness at the upper echelons of power.
Another area of attention is training as many teachers have been identified as having limited understanding of what Inclusive Education is all about. To this end, Hailer (2009) argues that the absence of teachers‟ pre-service and in-service training on Inclusive Education is an obstacle. This scholar further argues that the blind and the deaf children had barriers with regard to communication and there was a need to provide suitable resources to meet their need. There was a great need to train professional interpreters to be used at school and public levels (Hailer, 2009). From the above areas of development identified; the following strategies were introduced to overcome the challenges associated with Inclusive Education policy.
2.6.2.2.2 Curriculum development
Mburu (2007) maintains that the National Institute for Education appointed inclusive officer in an effort to meet the needs of all learners including those with special needs, thus ensuring that curriculum development applies an inclusive approach and that compensatory and that learning support materials were being developed for the purpose of assisting teachers in this regard.
2.6.2.2.3 Teacher training
Kupolo (2010) argues that the Namibia Qualification Authority developed the National Professional Standards for teachers and that key competence areas were identified with one of them being the facilitation of learning. This programme clearly underlined the policy practices such as identifying learners with special needs; adapting and accessing learning resources and activities and providing advocacy and support for learners with special needs.
Teachers were also trained in basic counselling skills to offer psychological support to children with diverse learning needs. The University of Namibia (UNAM) offered education
32 and training programmes that included this particular policy. The UNAM had established a Disability Unit to cater for the academic and social needs of students with disabilities.
Learners with visual impairments had been included successfully for over 10 years and those learners had gone on to graduate from teacher training colleges in Namibia and Zambia as well as the UNAM. Despite shortcomings the government introduced Vision 2030 which calls for access to quality education for all regardless of their disabilities.