Like education itself, teacher education and training also started long before independence. In traditional ways of education all parents, adults and elders in communities were entrusted to teach, correct, or even reprimand young ones who were not acting or behaving in acceptable ways as expected by their communities (Cohen, 1994; Ilukena, 2008). According to Lehtonen (1998), the first indigenous assistant teachers were mainly missionary domestics and attendants Since they were close and could attend school regularly, they acquired basic knowledge in reading, writing and numeracy than those who were distant from missionary centres. They were given basic informal training to be able to assist the missionaries with fundamental teaching duties of reading, writing as well as Bible instruction. However, as the aspiration and the need for indigenous people to be educated was growing, so was the demand and sustainability of teachers constantly increasing. This convinced the mission societies like Rhenish Mission Society, Finnish Mission Society (FMS) and the Roman Catholic Mission to establish indigenous teacher training centres. The first elementary teacher training institution was established in the south-west of the country by the Rhenish Mission
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Society (RMS) at Otjimbingwe in the 1860s and was later moved to Okahandja (mid-part of the country) in the 1890s. The Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) opened the training institution for the Blacks at Döbra in 1925, while in the northern part of the country, teacher elementary training was first carried out by Finish missionaries at Oniipa from 1913 and was later extended to different areas like Okahao in 1948, Oshigambo in 1952 and Ongwediva in 1979 (Cohen, 1994; Ilukena, 2008; Lehtonen, 1998; Ralaingita, 2008). According to Cohen (1994), the entry requirements at the above-mentioned missionary teacher institutions were very low; mere accomplishment of Standard 2 which is equivalent to Grade 4 in the present Namibian curriculum grading system, and only indigenous Black teachers were trained at such institutions. The examination taken by these teachers is reported to be “equivalent to even the lowest requirements… in any of the provinces in the Union” (p.89). Teacher training for the Blacks had very little support from the government in terms of buildings, funding or provision of teachers; the responsibility was thus, almost on the shoulders of missionaries and community members which was not an easy undertaking (Cohen, 1994; Lehtonen, 1998). Lehtonen (1998), a Finish missionary amongst the Ovawambo, describes the harsh conditions in which the first female teachers at Okahao went through in the late 1930s:
“classrooms were built with mud bricks …they had no beds, they had to sleep on the floor and they had to make their own sleeping mats [made of palm leaves]…they had no transport, the only transport available was their own feet, travelling long distances [through dense forests packed with wild animals], carrying their belongings on heads…there was no ceiling in their rooms, so they suffered from cold at night…there was no modern dining room, they had to sit down on the floor eating pap from handmade baskets [oontungwa] and potteries [omatemba]” (literary translated from p.76).
As was the circumstance with indigenous basic education, Katzao (1999) also acknowledges that teacher training for Africans was also gender based. Female teachers were admitted with very low entry requirements so that they could be trained specially to teach lower primary classes. The low qualifications they have acquired put them in a vulnerable position to be the lowest and the worst paid personnel in the teaching ranking system. This fact has proved the government’s discount and disrespect for elementary learning and women in particular. The Coloured teachers were trained at special institutions from their own ethnic group in South Africa where the minimum requirements were Standard 8 or 10, equivalent to Grade 10 and 12 respectively. In the same line, White teachers had to go to South Africa or European countries like Germany for tertiary training with full state financial assistance (Cohen, 1994; Katzao, 1999).
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In 1973 there were seven training institutes for African teachers, which were mainly secondary schools with teacher training wings (Nyambe & Griffiths, 2001) namely, Ongwediva in Owamboland, Augustineum in Windhoek, Cornelius Goreseb in Khorixas, Rundu in Kavango, Okakarara in Hereroland, Caprivi in Katima Mulilo (Caprivi) and Döbra in Windhoek. According to South West Africa Survey of 1974, the total number of student teachers were 2664 taught by 141 teachers throughout the country (Katzao, 1999). The entry requirements for a two or three-year training at such institutions was Standard VI (Grade 8), for a teaching qualification which was lower than that of Coloureds and Whites, as also teacher salaries. This was more prominent at institutions in areas beyond the Police Zone (ZP)1 or the “red line” (Cohen, 1994). Although the shortage and ineffective training of indigenous teachers at secondary level was evident, the Van Zyl Commission2 was not willing to establish more teacher and vocational training institutions or send teachers to South Africa for training, being considered as a local responsibility. Further studies and training opportunities outside the country were very narrow for many Black students due to poor primary background and financial assistance. Only very few with matriculation exemption got opportunities to attend Black university colleges in South Africa, provided they return to their country upon completion of their studies. This indicates that education for the indigenous, mainly the Blacks was not only unavailable, but was also not financially attended to. Cohen (1994) argues that there was no institution in the country where Black teachers could be trained for secondary level teaching until a new multi-racial Academy for Tertiary Education was established in Windhoek in 1980. However, the new institution was not independent, it was operating and preparing students to be awarded qualifications for the University of South Africa (UNISA) and the Technikon College in Pretoria until a new Academy Act, No. 9 of 1985 enabled its autonomy to award its own qualifications. Nevertheless, due to firm restricting space, lack of facilities and staff, it was still difficult for
1Police zone or red line was a colonial internal boundary which existed between 1890s to the 1960s. It has separated most of the indigenous African tribes such as Ovawambo, Kavango and other tribes in Kaokoland mostly seen as a big threat from White settlers in central and southern parts of the country. The border served as a security zone of the entire colonial empire in both Namibia and South Africa and represented a space of transition between the healthy White settlers in southern Africa and the imperial Black barbarians in African interior, that is, it has separated ‘civilization’ from ‘wilderness’ or ‘darkness’ (Walther, 2013). The line restricted Whites from moving to the north, but predominantly Blacks in the north to enter the prohibited area without valid legal document, the “pass.” Only men who were hired as ‘contract laborers’ for a prescribed period were allowed to enter (McKenna, 2011) after several medical check-ups. According to Du Pisani (2000), the purpose for Police Zone was to limit the movements of both people and animals to curb livestock diseases from the northern to the central and southern parts of the country.
2The commission appointed in 1958 by the South African government under Dr. H.J. van Zyl to investigate Black and Coloured education in South West Africa in order to separate the two education systems, and to decide the extent the South African system of Bantu Education should be applied to SWA (Cohen, 1994).
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the Black majority population to secure admission and enrolment at the new institution (Ilukena, 2008).
According to Ilukena (2008), until 1976, White and Coloured colleges were awarding three and four-year teacher diplomas of which the Senior Certificate was the requirement; while Black colleges in the north could only offer two-year primary teacher courses that is, Lower Primary Teacher Certificate (LPTC) with a minimum requirement of Standard 6, and Primary Teacher Certificate (PTC) which required the Junior Secondary Certificate (Standard 8) to enter. Black teachers have got their first Junior Secondary Teacher Certificate (JSTC) training offer in 1977, and unfortunately many did not have a Senior Certificate to go for the Diploma in education. When the above-mentioned teacher courses have been phased out a new two-year teacher course, Education Certificate Primary (ECP), with a minimum requirement of Junior Secondary Certificate (JSC) was introduced. However, Cohen (1994) condemns it for being more concentrated on matriculation subjects and suffered the professional dimension of the course including school organisation and administrative work. The training was more on theoretical and not on practice of teaching; teacher trainers were considered inexperienced and unqualified; and more importantly teachers were not being specialised in specific subjects. This is confirmed by the findings of the study conducted among Life Science teachers by Ndemuweda (2011) as teachers profess that their ECP training was mainly about different subject methodologies (didactics), but not necessarily on content. Dahlstrom (1995) states that ECP course “did not give Black students proper qualification if not accompanied with a Standard 10 matriculation, a combination which was necessary to be placed at a professional level in the salary scale” (p. 274). On the other hand, Cohen (1994) recognises that ECP course was considered as a “typical Bantu Education-style special programme for black teachers” which tried to advance the standards of education in realistic ways because it has aided many primary-trained teachers to acquire Standard 10 qualification. When the ECP course was phased out it was replaced by a short-lived National Education Certificate (NEC) which was designed in line with contemporary educational philosophy, but it was still reflecting the status quo. These two recent pre-independence qualifications, ECP and NEC, like other earlier qualifications, were not recognised as proper qualifications in the salary scales for teachers in the post-independence Namibia. Dahlstrom et al. (1999) and Nyambe and Griffiths (2001) describe teacher programmes offered in Namibia before independence as teacher-and content-centred with little teaching practice and not school-based, examination and test-driven, transmission of knowledge established on rote
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learning and memorisation, and aimed at qualification attainment rather than teacher understanding and development. In the same line with Ralaingita (2008) and Cohen (1994), they further argue that previous teacher programmes were authoritarian in nature; that is, they were more of discipline and authority, power and control which were designed to maintain and enhance inequities and inequalities of the social order of the time and teachers were accustomed to support it. This task was facilitated by a large cadre of the South African Defence Force who were deployed mainly in northern areas as teachers, carrying their weapons to classrooms to intimidate and instil fear in students. As clearly asserted by Nyambe and Griffiths (2001) in teacher colleges, “curriculum was delivered through the barrel of the gun in those bitter days” (p.2). Teaching and training did not support and entertain progressive and modern philosophy of education which includes freedom of speech, democratic, independent and critical thinking ideas and were therefore out of the question.
During the liberation struggle, SWAPO took teacher education and training as a matter of urgent concern and for that reason the liberation movement sent many teachers to different countries inside and outside of the continent for training, while at the same time putting its own teacher education and training programmes in place. As stipulated earlier, many countries, organisations and university teacher educators worldwide have assisted in that development (Dahlstrom et al., 1999). After independence the new government established the Higher Commission on Higher Education headed by Professor J. D. Turner in 1991 to identify the prerequisites, difficulties and possibilities of higher education. Upon its recommendations and proposals, the Academy was developed into the University of Namibia (UNAM) in 1992 following the cabinet’s University of Namibia Bill of 1992. The new Faculty of Education maintained and made many new teacher course programs available which were context-specific. However, given their design that emphasised on educational administration and management as other courses existed before independence, some of them, mainly the primary level courses like Education Diploma Primary (ED Prim) and Higher Primary Education Certificate (HPEC) were permanently phased out in the 1990s to give way to secondary level courses. From those years, the pre-service training at primary level in Namibia has been done at colleges, while that of secondary level teachers offered at UNAM (Ralaingita, 2008).
Given the anticipated national education reform agenda and the direct participation of teachers in effecting reforms, there was a vital need to improve the education and training of teachers to ensure the success thereof. This has resulted in the initiation of the new teacher
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program, Basic Education Teacher Diploma (BETD), by the Ministry of Education at four colleges of education namely: Caprivi, Rundu, Ongwediva and Windhoek with the total number of 470 pre-service first in-takers in 1993 (Cohen, 1994; Dahlstrom, 1995; Ilukena, 2008; Ralaingita, 2008). The program has also been extended to a distance in-service mode, though in limited numbers, with the purpose of improving and upgrading knowledge and qualification of the un-qualified and semi-qualified teachers from the apartheid system. Unlike previous teacher education courses offered in the apartheid era based on teacher passivism, knowledge transmission, rote learning and memorisation; BETD teacher course was designed around constructivist ideas and principles. The program was designed to address the economic, social, cultural and political needs and challenges of the modern progressive world. It is based on the learner-centred ideas and is more school-based which allows for active participation of teachers and critical inquiries. Unlike in the past, teachers are viewed as active participants in learning and not as “empty vessels” (tabula rasa) to be filled with knowledge by experts. Teachers’ prior knowledge and experiences are seen as critical and are therefore acknowledged because it is where new knowledge and experiences are linked and related to during the process of reflection (Ilukena, 2008).
The new teacher education program attempted to fill the gaps and flaws observed and experienced in teacher courses offered in the past; a big move in unifying and standardising the national education of teachers which is not racial, ethnic or gender based (Dahlstrom et al., 1999). There was no or very slim opportunities for secondary level teacher education in the past as mentioned earlier. Therefore, to increase the number of qualified and specialised subject teachers at secondary level, BETD was designed to cover up to a junior secondary level (grade 10) and was offering a variety of learning specialisation subjects. According to Dahlstrom (1999), BETD was distinctive from previous teacher courses because of its Critical Practitioner Inquiry (CPI) component which consists of two elements namely, the School Based Studies (SBS) and the Education Theory and Practice (ETP). At the end of their first-year, teachers get exposed to experience real teaching situations and contexts as they are sent to schools through SBS to investigate, observe and gather information about teaching materials and resources, teaching methodologies and learning strategies; as well as about school administration, schooling and society in their second year. For knowledge production, student teachers conduct an independent project/study to demonstrate their understanding and skills as they are expected to link empirical information collected from schools to theoretical perspectives presented in ETP through producing reports at the end of
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their course program. The program was based on criterion-referenced assessment policy rather than normative assessment, which puts a stronger weight on subject knowledge learning instead of didactics as it was more predominant in previous programs.