Parents of learners who are attending an unregistered lower primary private school in Windhoek's Goreangab area want the Ministry of Education, Arts, and Culture to urgently register the school.

Parents, including community members, say they have done all they could to meet the government halfway by setting up the school.

This is the Okapale informal area in Goreangab, and over the years, the residents here have increased, as have the shacks, most of them illegally, and with that, the demand for municipal and government service delivery has escalated.

The area has no formal school in the immediate vicinity; the closest primary school is the Olof Palme Primary School, situated a few kilometres away.

This daycare centre was founded in 2019 and is built on the property of Matheus Johannes, a qualified teacher who is employed as a full-time educator at Keetmanshoop.

As is the norm at the start of each school year, many parents find it challenging to find placement for their children, particularly in first grade.

Johannes heeded the call of the community and expanded his daycare centre, which is now accommodating learners through grades 1, 2, and 3.

Johannes further employs ten qualified teachers, including a principal and two cleaners, who are responsible for about 250 learners.

Upon the expansion of the school, a new block for additional classrooms was constructed at a cost of N$95,000; through money raised by the parents of the learners, including activists and community members.

But according to Johannes, it is the registration of the school that has become a stumbling block.

He says as per the ministerial guidelines, the school does not meet certain requirements, and one of the requirements topping the list is that the classrooms are constructed with corrugated iron sheets, which, he says, is deemed a safety hazard for learners by the authorities.

Claiming to have been sent from pillar to post by the |Khomas Region's Education Directorate, Johannes invited Nestor Kalola, the councillor of the Samora Marcel constituency.

Kalola reminded the parents and the community that there are processes and procedures in place before a school can be set up.

"Certain criteria must be met, and not meeting such criteria will be a challenge."

He says that the government has already made available funds to construct a school in the area.

Kalola stated that the school will have 28 classrooms and that all technicalities surrounding the construction of the planned school have been finalised; however, he says that the hold-up is the availability of land in the area.

His office, he noted, has been in communication with the City of Windhoek, which he said will hopefully speed up the process of providing the required land for the construction of a school in the area.

For now, he says that the regional education directorate would consider moving the children enrolled at the unregistered private school to nearby state schools, but does not provide answers on what would become of the 10 teachers employed there.

The school charges N$240 for the daycare and N$400 per child for primary school classes; Johannes says the money goes directly to the payment of staff.