Parents who attended the Parents' Education Conference at Swakopmund have urged their peers to instill discipline in their children at home instead of blaming teachers.

"You are aware that the children usually wear two coats of discipline. At home, he is a well-mannered boy, but at school, he is a troublemaker. "As a parent, I want to encourage each other that, at the very least, you must make a surprise visit to the school to see the boy child wearing the same coat as at home; otherwise, these boys are bullying teachers at school, and they are also smoking on their way to school," one of the parents, Sem Iitembu, said.

"As parents, we take our time getting to know our children. Children become the bosses of the house—untouchable children—and you expect those children to perform. In which performance are they going to perform? What do you expect teachers to do if you, as a parent, consider your child untouchable? Huh?" said Loisa Kativa, the Swakopmund Constituency Councilor.

"You must also do follow-up back to school, have an engagement, even in a phone call to the teacher, and ask him how he is doing," says another parent, Mulongela Hipopiwa. "I'm seeing his performance going lower, or at least finally improving. What happened? If they realize that there's communication between my parents and my teacher, then that child has a high chance of improvement because they know I have nowhere to hide."

Nduwa Mwilima, from the Swakopmund Junior Council, added a youth perspective to the conversation. "We do need love. That is the biggest thing, and the Bible says if you cannot discipline your child, you do not love your child. If you were disciplined in the best way possible, what makes you think your child does not deserve that discipline? You think that because you are not disciplining your child, you are showing them love, you are throwing them out to the world to become something useless, and the world does not care."

Apart from matters of discipline, others suggested that parents should contribute to the Erongo Education Fund bank account.