Namibia's Kavango East Schools Struggle Despite N$27M Investment

Over one hundred schools across Namibia's Kavango East region are operating without the basic infrastructure that students need to learn. They lack classrooms. They lack laboratories for science and computer instruction. Many lack running water. The shortages are stark enough that they appear in official regional development reports, documented and quantified by the people tasked with fixing them.

Yet money has been allocated. The government committed N$8 million specifically for the construction of three new classroom blocks—one each at Edward Mukoya Secondary School, Kambimba Combined School, and Augustinus Mashika Secondary School, with additional blocks planned for Pikinini Junior Primary and Muhopi Primary School. Beyond that, another N$19.3 million was set aside for a broader set of repairs and upgrades. Seven schools were targeted: Hompa Sophia Mundjembwe Junior Primary, Neyuva Combined, Muroro Primary, Mabushe Combined, Neyuva Secondary, Mungunda Primary, and Tjeye Primary. The money was meant to cover renovations, new ablution facilities, and electrical installations.

The total investment—N$27.3 million—is substantial by any measure. Yet when Mukwe constituency councillor Augusta Katembo presented the regional development report to parliament on Tuesday, the gap between funding and reality became impossible to ignore. The region still faces a shortage of sixty-two administrative blocks. Seven science and computer laboratories remain unbuilt. Eleven schools have no access to water. The numbers accumulate into a portrait of persistent deprivation: approximately one hundred and forty classrooms are in such poor condition they are described as dilapidated, along with forty other educational facilities.

Katembo acknowledged the paradox directly in her parliamentary presentation. She noted that education is widely recognized as a critical driver of development—a statement that rings hollow when the infrastructure to deliver that education remains absent or broken. The question her report raises, without quite asking it outright, is whether funding alone solves the problem. Money allocated is not money spent. Money spent is not money that reaches the ground in the form of finished buildings, functioning laboratories, or water taps that actually work.

The schools named in the funding announcements serve students across the region, from junior primary through secondary levels. The students in those buildings—and in the one hundred-plus schools still waiting—are the ones who experience the shortage directly. They study in overcrowded classrooms or in spaces that are deteriorating around them. They cannot conduct experiments because there is no laboratory. They cannot wash their hands because there is no water. These are not abstract problems. They shape what a child can learn and how a teacher can teach.

What remains unclear from the report is the timeline for implementation, the reason for the gap between allocation and completion, or what obstacles have slowed the work. The funding exists. The need is documented. The schools are named. The next question—the one that will determine whether this investment actually changes anything—is whether the money moves from the budget line into actual construction, and how quickly.