The Deputy Minister of Education, Arts, and Culture, Faustina Caley, has called on schools to utilise their funds for the intended purposes.

Caley spoke at the Otjozondjupa Regional Education Directorate's state of education consultative meeting at Otjiwarongo.

The platoon systems, shortage of qualified teachers, especially in Indigenous languages, and lack of new teaching and learning technologies are some of the challenges the directorate faces that are hindering the schools from obtaining optimum results. 

The Deputy Education Minister, however, says funds portioned to schools for practical and pre-vocational subjects are misapplied.

"We have observed with great concern in 2023 that there were many schools across our country that have not utilised these funds for the targeted purpose, which is to buy consumables and submit an accountability report to NIED, and we always say by September you should have already submitted how you have utilised it."

The funds are intended for the consumption of practical materials and minor equipment for science subjects.

Otjozondjupa Governor James Uerikua said the ministry needs to consider budgetary provisions for capital projects for schools.

He said the region has a high enrolment rate, adding to the already existing pressure of the need for classrooms. 

"We need to make it fashionable that when the request is coming from the region most of the time it's not a thumb-sucked figure but rather a figure that is based on the experiential nature of things on the ground, which means that the pragmatic analysis that was done from the ground to say that A and B are needed, is needed. As a result, we want this."

Due to the overflow and linguistic issues, some learners had to be transferred to other regions where they could be accommodated.