Minister of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sport, Arts, and Culture, Sanet Steenkamp, has cautioned parents against depending on untrained nannies for their children’s early learning, revealing that only 17% of early childhood development (ECD) educators in Namibia are formally qualified.
“We cannot as parents leave the education of your child in the hands of the nanny who is not trained for early child education,” stressed Steenkamp at the relaunch of the RightStart Programme, aimed at promoting nurturing care and integrated early childhood development (IECD), on Thursday.
Steenkamp stressed that instead of parents attending to their children’s education at home by providing them with educational materials such as building blocks, puzzles, reading books and edu-games, they rather provide them with cellphones for playing or give them to nannies who are busy watching their telenovelas (TV shows) with little effort given to the child.
She said that communities are the first teachers of children, so home education should not be overlooked. Steenkamp highlighted that the national ECD Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices study found that only 2% of Namibian parents know that children start learning from birth.
“This lack of awareness means parents may not realise the importance of reading, speaking, playing with and stimulating their babies’ minds and bodies. Teachers come into a child’s life later, after much brain architecture is already developed,” the veteran educator said.
ECD is facing significant challenges, she said, highlighting that in 2023, of 414,069 children aged 0-4, only 51,872 accessed ECD services, meaning over 87% of children aged 0-4 do not attend integrated ECD programmes. Meanwhile, 60% of pre-primary-aged children are not enrolled in preschool, with only 17% of educators holding formal qualifications.
“These represent significant barriers to lifelong learning and contribute directly to learning poverty. Through RightStart, we are addressing these challenges head-on by giving parents accurate information, such as the value of early play for brain development, what quality in an ECD centre means, and how important it is to speak to a child in their mother tongue,” she noted.