States, statelessness and education: Post-return integration of Namibians trained abroad

ht. 1. Educadonal Development, Vol. 14. No. 3, pp. 29%319. 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain 0738-0593/94 $7.cm + .oo

0738-0593(94)00033--6

STATES, STATELESSNESS AND EDUCATION: POST-RETURN INTEGRATION OF NAMIBIANS TRAINED ABROAD

ROSEMARY PRESTON

International Centre for Education in Development, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.

Abstract - The form and extent of education in countries of asylum is the product of refuge-seeker persistence in articulating demand, the scope for NGO educational support and host government attitudes to the refuge-seekers in question. (Over the past decade, strategy has been to discourage education that would facilitate labour market access in countries of asylum.) In camps, the result has been generally poor quality basic education for a minority of refugee children and rudimentary skills training for a tiny proportion of adults. Huge efforts are also made for small numbers of refugees to pursue studies at upper secondary and tertiary levels, often in third countries willing to offer specially negotiated places. While there is little information about the intrinsic or instrumental worth of such training, in countries of asylum, resettlement or origin, governments play a crucial role in allowing exiles to work or not and in providing mechanisms for qualification recognition.

A study of post-war integration in Namibia included components on employer attitudes to former exiles and a large-scale tracer study of those who as refugees had received training abroad. Initial fears on the part of the stayer population, of labour market saturation by well-educated returnees, have proved unfounded as formal qualifications are not matched with work experience. Nevertheless, returned exiles are better educated overall than stayers and, only three years after independence, are more likely to be in employment. In a country with high and growing unemployment, this has been made possible by bureaucratic expansion and affirmative action.

Employers have strong feelings about the quality of training received in different countries, (data suggest that this may have more to do with levels of training provided than with national politics). Few of those with basic vocational skills have found work, although some are seeking further qualifications. The government has done little to help. The competency rating scheme is inefficient although plans are being made to strengthen it. The system of credit transfer applied to professional and academic qualifications, still bound by South African restrictions, is seen by many as the biggest obstacle to public sector employment. Loopholes have been found to enable non-recognised educational and health professionals to work, often outside conventional career structures. There is much bitterness among those who remain excluded. This, the frustration of those to be retrenched in bureaucratic contraction and the anger of ex-combatants with no tangible gain for their sacrifice combine to produce a potent threat to national stability.

INTRODUCTION

State, agencies, relief and development Whatever their intrinsic intentions, instru-

mentally, development projects or programmes invest to increase production directly or through human resource development and maintenance. However small, however authocthonous such schemes, they are typically endorsed by local states and, often indirectly, inspired and funded internationally. The structure of this external funding affects differentially the commitment to project evaluation of those par-

ty to a scheme’s development. If an interest gathering loan has been negotiated from multi- or bilateral sources, governments will be concerned with the efficacy of implementation to ensure repayment and avoid debt. If a non-repayable grant has been made from organisations dependent on charitable dona- tions from individuals, communities or states, evaluation of implementation and goal achievement is also essential. Not only does it in- form donor organisations about the future fundworthiness of beneficiaries and receiving states, it allows the original contributors to

299

300 ROSEMARY PRESTON

assess the disbursement wisdom and efficiency of those to whom they entrusted their money. Without such feedback they will be cautious about making further contributions.

After four decades of internationally funded schemes to improve social well-being and economic growth, donor relations with states are often strained. Not only are states cautious of debts they can never repay, they find that the superior resources of the so-called humanitarian organisations are used to dislocate local economies and undermine national infrastruc- ture. In some cases agencies, in the interests of efficiency, sometimes with truculence, have the power to by-pass government procedures. Today, economic liberalisation and weakening of the state, legitimates such strategy, particularly if help to the needy can be more speedily delivered. Nowhere is this more true than with the growing number of victims of disaster in different parts of the world.

States become unable to challenge strategy when the world’s media present the starving fed, as a result of the resourceful energy of the staff of one or another donor organisations. Contributors to the organisation’s funds, satisfied at the quick and visible use made of their gifts are disposed to give again, con- vinced of the value beyond all else of saving life, regardless of its quality. Indeed contributions are notably less forthcoming for less media-appealing causes with neither quick nor demonstrative results (Black, 1992).

Nevertheless, states, donor and implementing organisations know that long-term crisis sufferers need help to rebuild their lives beyond survival and create some possibility of a future for themselves and their dependents (Nobel, 1987). For continuous funding to such endeavours, there has to be positive publicised feedback about the effects of such investment, however small. To ensure authorisation, action has to be consonant with state, as well as agency and beneficiary, priorities and interests.

The case of development aid, rather than relief, to refuge-seeking groups can be used to illustrate the point.

Refuge, relief and development Whatever the given reasons for conflict, the

changing nature of states and their economies is a principal cause of today’s high in- cidence of involuntary international migration and internal displacement. Invariably, this dis-

placement requires regulation by governments, through their own departments, through voluntary organisations or through both together. Whatever the reality underlying the rhetoric of state deregulation in respect of people with long-term residential rights within a territory, those decreed stateless, with restricted leave to remain, find themselves subject to state sanctions which may well exceed any they have previously known. These restrictions affect the most basic aspects of their lives: access to food, clothing and shelter, mobility, work and, the subject of this paper, services. For reasons of internal stability, receiving states, wholly sympathethic to the cause for which those to whom they give asylum have fled, apply these controls. Even so, in the eyes of the international community, they are described as humanitarian for admitting what are often large numbers of exiles.

This contradiction is replicated in the case of aid organisations. Their workers believe the guiding discourses of charity and philanthropy (without which funding would dwindle) as they regulate access to funds which reach a few, carefully selected beneficiaries. Their inter- ventions are limited by the level of resources of which they dispose and by state policy to the effect that support of refuge-seekers from across international borders shall not surpass that made to local people.

In addition, there have always been political issues surrounding refuge-seeker education that made it more sensitive than other forms of non-relief assistance for both states and agencies (Preston, 1991a).

States, agencies and refugee education The uncertainty of refuge-seeker futures at

first makes assistance to their education an act of faith, more than of economic planning.

Refuge-seeker demand for education may be to provide occupation for those with otherwise nothing to do in camps. It may be to focus the mind of the refuge-seeking community on the political and cultural rationales for their statelessness and to prevent people losing sight of their related objectives. More conventionally, it may be to ensure that refuge-seeker children, in some unknown future, are equipped with the basic skills of life in modern society and able to ‘compete for work at more than minimal levels. Finally, it may be a means whereby the ambitious can increase their probability

POST-RETURN INTEGRATION OF NAMIBIANS TRAINED ABROAD 301

of joining international and cultural elites, regardless of their eventual settlement status (Preston, 1991a).

If refuge-seeker numbers are not great, there may be no impediment to children enrolling in local schools and receiving national recognition for their achievement, whatever the level. As numbers grow beyond local absorptive capacity (which may be politically determined) special provision is made. The form of this provision will vary with the current status and long-term settlement expectations of the individuals or groups in question, locally, in a third country, or after return to country of origin. Provision will also depend on host country membership (and its form) or not of the Geneva Convention (UN, 1983).

Some states have withheld membership of the Convention and Protocol and so have no obligation, beyond the principle of territorial- ity, to those seeking asylum. Many long-term signatories have now devised strategies which enable them to meet no more than minimal asylum requirements for specified periods of time. They defer conferment of refugee status and the meeting of its concomitant social obligations. Others, also signatories to the Convention, may have accepted only partial- ly or not at all the commitment to provide those accorded refugee status with education and, closely related, access to work (Preston, 1991a).

Whatever the above, acquiescence to demand for refuge-seeker education always in- volves the host state, passively or proactively. Special permission may be arranged for the children of asylum seekers in the community, refused refugee status, to attend local schools. In camps, where long term local resettlement is envisaged, education may have been provided within the national education system or allowed to develop independently to nationally recognised standards. In preparation for third country resettlement, refugees would be given relevant language and cultural orientation and, in the case of children, basic schooling compat- ible with what they would receive on reaching their destination. Typically, host governments of countries of temporary asylum would allow representatives of the government of the resettlement country to make these arrangements.

Where repatriation is the intended durable solution there is an increasing preference on the part of host governments and refugees for

education to be relevant to the needs of the country of origin. Under such circumstances refugees themselves assume responsibility for educational planning, administration, curriculum development, teacher training and assessment. If refugees are members of a liberation movement, such educational development may be under the auspices of governments in exile.

Host governments also control the level to which refuge-seekers can study. They will allow skills and vocational training, for small numbers, sometimes in specialised institutions (for example, the United Nations Centre for Vocational Training for Namibians at Tsumbe, Angola). With few exceptions (such as the Unit- ed Nations Institute for Namibia in Lusaka, Zambia) they do not sanction purpose built secondary or tertiary institutions for refugees. They may allow children to enrol locally. They will endorse requests for scholarship holders to travel elsewhere, within the country or abroad, for post-primary schooling and beyond, and to return on completion of their course. Overall, they fear criticism to the effect that they are providing more for refugees than for their own nationals. They are afraid lest more competent refuge-seekers come to oust nationals from employment.

Without exception, the implementation of refugee education projects is dependent on local or international non-government organisations. Governed by the terms of reference of parent organisations (not infrequently the governments of the country from which they originate) investment is highly selective and restricted. Some pass funds to UNHCR and UNHCR passes them to implementing groups. Others implement themselves or through local NGOs. In areas of countries where government representatives are unable to go, agency staff assume responsibility for the maintenance of social order, control of the food supply and direction of other aid. In this they appear to assume the role of a surrogate state.

Responding to local, national and international constraints, governments will allow significantly different forms of educational provision to refugees from the same state (Smawfield, 1994), and a single government will treat refuge-seekers from different states more or less favourably (Wooldridge, 1988). Agency support is determined in part by what the government will allow or what they can achieve without government approval. It is also


affected by the political orientations of donors toward the different groups of refuge-seekers. Some groups inspire generous funding for many years (Khmer on the Thai border for example). Others sink into obscurity and receive little (West Papuans from Indonesia in Papua New Guinea).

Publicity, money and relevance Whatever the implications of these ex-

ternalities for the quantity and quality of education for refuge-seekers in places of temporary asylum, it receives the fullest possible amount of publicity. This serves to consolidate the humanitarian image of both donors and host states. In its turn, this prevents refuge-seeker complaint at the paucity and impoverishment of the service.

Unfortunately, whatever the hype, funding to education is provided for only small mi- norities of refuge-seeking populations and its quality is often dubious. In the mid-1980s UNHCR used half its educational allocation to provide only 15% of the refugee children with primary schooling. The remaining money went to support post-primary scholarships held by no more than 5% of the total of those assisted. [Figures for 1986, quoted in Preston (1991a).] Tiny proportions of adults participate in small- scale vocational training programmes and other basic educational projects. Typically, these are funded directly by voluntary organisations.

Donor reluctance to promote such development rather than relief activities for refuge- seeking groups is also explained in terms of their uncertain relevance. If long-term settlement intentions are unknown, the language of instruction, of even primary schooling, is problematic. If there is a known durable solution, lack of information about the human resource needs of the destination state is used to prevaricate over basic curriculum decisions and advanced scholarship courses catering to very narrow sectors of labour markets (Preston, 1991b).

The presence of teachers and large numbers of children in schools, learning to read and write regardless of the medium of instruction is generally taken to indicate the relevance to the need of the service provided. Without taking into consideration details of teacher qualifications, pupil attendance and perfor- mance or resource availability, there is rarely information about the effectiveness of such schemes. Even less frequently is there feedback

about the extent to which such experience is adequate preparation for children moving to schools outside the refugee community, in the county of asylum or elsewhere. Equally rarely obtained are data about post-training skill use by older children and adults who received vocational training or scholarships for advanced academic and professional education in refugee communities, country of first asylum or long-term settlement.

Perhaps this is not surprising. At the time when arrangements for such education are made, refugee groups are concentrated and the location of individuals is known. From then on these groups disperse for other refugee settlements or to places of expected long- term resettlement. This dispersal makes tracing alone complex and time consuming. In a sector in which funding is scarce such research is costly. This and the gathering of detailed contextual information necessary to explain the observations made are serious reasons for not undertaking such evaluations. Further, the governments of the countries to which exiles go have little interest in investigating post hoc the relevance of schemes started years before in other countries.

Those who need the information are the funding organisations which continue to support similar programmes for refuge-seekers in other parts of the world. They need retrospec- tive reports from former students about the adequacy of the support the received and the use, if any, made of the skills acquired. For those organisations which have fought with boards of trustees to provide any assistance to refugee education, such evaluation is critical to continued activity.

What follows is a report of just such an evaluation and what it revealed. A large scale study of post war integration in Namibia (see Appendix I for an outline of the war-affected people (WAP) project) (Preston et al, 1993) included the collection of data which allowed some comparison of the relevance of education in exile and within the country to post-war social integration and labour market needs (Tamas and Gleichmann, 1993) and a survey of the attitudes of employers to taking on those with foreign qualifications (Makanya and Tamas, 1993). Before presenting some of the observations made, an introduction to Namibian human resource development strategy is provided.


HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN NAMIBIA

The apartheid labour market (Preston and Kandando, 1993)

Racial segregation kept Namibia’s minority white population in positions of ownership and senior management in the small formal sector of the pre-independence economy. The black population was largely excluded from other than manual labour in the industrial, business, commercial farming and domestic sectors. Most, some two-thirds, were subsistence producers in communal areas.

The three-tier education system with resource rich academic schooling for white and low level, non-academic skills training for blacks was an effective preparation for such differentiated roles. Only a minority of blacks completed primary schooling of whom few were able to obtain secondary education or further training for lower levels of non-manual work. Similarly, the opportunities through the state for blacks to receive scholarships for studies outside Namibia were scarce and most were for courses in South Africa. Ad- ditional opportunities were made available by the international community, opposed to the South African regime. In such cases, even representatives of foreign governments negotiated with local NGOs, by-passing the administration of Windhoek.

Since the late 196Os, it has been the small number of blacks with above-average education who have found non-manual service sector work as, for example, teachers, nurses, secretaries, police officers and sales people.

As part of their 1980s Winning hearts and mindrs campaign, South Africans wooed Namibian al- legiance by improving black access to upper secondary and tertiary education. The creation of the Academy was conspicuous. Measures to provide vocational training were less viable. For more than two decades there have been scholarships offered to Namibian residents, largely in South Africa with some overseas. A small proportion of these were given to members of the black community.

Exile and career development The first liberation movement exiles left

Namibia in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many were reasonably educated and had experience as political campaigners. For them

to be able to sustain the movement from outside Namibia and to maintain their profile in international arenas, it was clear that they would need to increase their formal skills. At the same time, those who were to take part in the armed struggle required military training.

The balance between the needs of furthering the struggle or of self-advancement among the pioneer exiles is not known. From the mid-1970s after Angolan independence, there is no doubt that it was frustration at limited educational and career expectations in Namibia, as much as political commitment, that was the trigger for a sizeable minority of young people, particularly women, to leave for exile.

I knew once that I completed Grade 10, I should not be able to study any more. I didn’t want to go back to the village because I would have had to marry. I wasn’t active in politics before I left, but I went into exile because I believed that I would be able to continue my education.

(Preston, 1992a)

An open question to this effect was asked in the tracer study questionnaire, but has not as yet been fully analysed. In addition, motive was an issue pursued in the many unscheduled interviews held for the WAP project.

Selectivity However problematic, figures for 1981 sug-

gest that only 14% of black children were enrolled at standard 5 or above (Ellis, 1984). A generation earlier, educational opportunities for blacks were even less. In this context, parents of a significant minority of blacks leaving for exile appear to have been relatively well-educated and to have moved away from subsistence production (Table 1). In many cases, their children had, before departure, reached educational levels above those attained by the majority black population and were clearly hoping for professional careers.

Outside Namibia The opportunities for education outside the

country varied over the thirty years of the Namibian exile period. The exiles of the early 1960s were able to complete their secondary schooling at colleges in Tanzania and Zambia. They were given the first scholarships for university study in the U.S.A., Western Europe and different African countries. With the mass exodus from Owambo following Angolan independence in 1974, primary schools were created


Table 1. Parental education and occupational statuses of exiles with foreign qualification (in percentages)

Education above Std 4 Non-subsistence employment Responses

N missing N % N %

Father 651 30 145 22.3 326 50 Mother 651 27 126 19.4 176 27

Source: Preston and Kandando (1993).

in camps in Angola and Zambia. Those who left through Botswana had similar opportunities at Dukwe and Francistown. There were also opportunities for vocational training, other post-primary schooling and tertiary education and training, locally, elsewhere in Africa and other parts of the capitalist, socialist and non- aligned world. All in all, at least 50 countries provided education for Namibian exiles.

Over the years, with international shifts in thinking about appropriate education and with increased numbers of exiles with little education, changes in the subjects offered can be identified. In the 196Os, social science flour- ished. By the 1970s more practical training was in vogue, with economics, law and public administration becoming popular. Vocational training was also available throughout the exile period, reaching a peak of provision in the 1980s (Preston and Tamas, 1992).

Forms of education Purpose-built institutions were created to

provide education for Namibians in exile. They included the United Nations Institute for Namibia (UNIN) and the Namibia Extension College (NEC) in Lusaka, the United Na- tions Vocational Training Centre (UNVTC) at Tsumbe in Angola and the Norwegian-funded Loudima Vocational Training Centre in Congo. There were primary and secondary schools for Namibians in Cuba, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Language and other educational deficiencies led many countries to offer courses tailored to meet particular Namibian needs, which were not open to people from their own or other countries. They included Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Finland, East and West Germany, and Singapore among others. As well as English, training included co-operative development, public administration and vocational skills. Typically, certificates

awarded after such courses were not valid for work in the country providing the course. Sometimes however, such courses were pre- paratory to registration for professional training that would carry full national recognition. A U.K. case in point would be the English language courses provided at Selly Oak, which led to instructor training courses at Moray House.

Scholarships for such special courses and for other upper secondary and tertiary education were provided. In the 1960s the first countries offering such opportunities included Egypt, Nigeria, the U.S.A. and Sweden. From the mid-1970s with the increased number of refugees, Cuba and the former countries of Eastern Europe became the most important providers. Approximately 1000 studied in Brit- ain, of whom 800 were sponsored by the British government and other organisations. Other funders included the Commonwealth Secretariat and the United Nations.

Selection From the beginning of the exile period, the

choice confronting recent exiles was to join what was to become the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) or to pursue education with a view to assuming leadership roles in exile and, hopefully, later after repatriation. In the 197Os, as numbers increased, decisions about an individual’s fate lay with party and other leaders. On arrival at transit centres in neighbouring states, new exiles were assigned to PLAN for military training, the camps or to education elsewhere. These decisions may well have been reached on the basis of impressions of physical fitness, previous education and political experience.

From the early 197Os, new exiles with secondary education stood a good chance of continuing their schooling, either immediately or after serving with PLAN for a period


of time. Some young adolescents anticipated this. From the moment of leaving Namibia, they saw themselves as the intellectuals of the exile group and were impatient of any delay in being provided with opportunities for personal fulfilment (Preston, 1992b).

By the mid-1970s, competition for access to post-primary education was intense. Efforts were made to enable women to have the same number of opportunities to study as men and, in the case of certain sponsors, to encourage them to follow courses usually taken by men.

To ensure that those selected had met pre- requisite standards, tests were held annually in the camps for entrance to West African secondary schools, in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, as well as in East Africa. Admission to UNIN was also subject to meeting entrance examination requirements.

In spite of such pre-selection strategies, there is evidence quoted in the WAP report that standards achieved in the West African tests were disappointingly low (Tamas and Gleichmann, 1993). This was also the case at UNIN. The speaker of the National Assembly of the Independent State of Namibia, one time director of UNIN, observed that there was a de- cline in the educational standards of applicants as the numbers of Namibians in exile increased in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (Preston, 1993a). (This observation is consonant with the transition from highly selective to undif- ferentiated mass exile that has been observed in refugee movements elsewhere (Kunz, 1981)). Even at the specially created vocational training centres at Tsumbe and later at Loudima, Namibians had difficulty meeting the very low standards set (Preston, 1992~).

Already by the late 196Os, for a combina- tion of both political and financial reasons, the liberation movements South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) and South West Africa National Union (SWANU) had come to play a major role in selecting those who would receive overseas scholarships. SWAP0 in exile was the internationally recognised government of Namibia and this arrangement seemed appropriate. Refugee scholarship programmes are notoriously expensive to administer (Preston, 1991a). Donors came to choose between sending their own representatives to test and interview prospective students, at some considerable cost to themselves, and trusting the different exile group leaders to recommend

suitable candidates. By and large, as reported in the WAP study, it seems that donors took a greater part in the selection of students for more academic courses than for lower level, vocationally oriented schemes.

There are many stories of people on hand or acolytes of those in power being offered places on courses, at the time confirmation of new opportunities was received, It is clear also that in other cases considerable effort was made to select people committed to a field of study and capable of seeing it through.

Evaluating Namibian education in exile The education of Namibians in exile was

a signal achievement. It received generous support from the international community, from the UN to governments, international NGOs and small NGOs within neighbouring states. It is estimated that up to one-third of the exile population received out-of-country non-military education or training in some form, although what this represents in terms of numbers is far from clear. The size of the population in exile was claimed to be 80 000 to 90 000. After the implementation of UN Resolution 435, a maximum of 50 000 have repatriated and, apart from SWAP0 ex- detainees who have not returned from Angola (Brown and Dix, 1993) there is no rumour to the effect that some 30 000-40 000 are still outside the country.

The WAP tracer study accumulated some 15 000 names on lists of people sponsored by different organisations for education overseas. If (because of duplication) these represented some 12 000 individuals they would amount to some 24% of an exile population of 50 000, of whom more than half would have been children at the time of return. Since the lists did not comprise a complete set (there was no information about the majority of those who studied in Cuba, the U.S.A. or U.S.S.R., for example), it is possible that well over one-third took part in special vocational or professional training, or regular courses at upper secondary levels and above.

Some documented information about the quality of the different camp education programmes is available in the form of monitoring reports and of student entry test and perfor- mance scores. There is also a proud collective memory of achievement and its contribution to post-war reconstruction. At the same time,


realists reflect on more difficult issues: the relevance of the training and the standards it set for the contemporary labour force and the readiness of students for the courses offered.

Before the WAP project, little was known beyond rumour and supposition about these processes. Particular questions concern the relevance of skills acquired to labour market needs. They included the extent to which the country, type, level and subject of training have influenced the acquisition of work. There was serious concern about the quality of skills acquired and their retention in respect of students who participated in specially arranged courses.

POST-WAR INTEGRATION

General observations (Preston et al., 1993) The WAP project found that in spite of

prodigious efforts on the part of government to remove the instruments of apartheid and create a democratic society, life for most Namibians has changed little since independence. The white population continues to administer the economy in the interests of South Africa. Black leaders are often more concerned to emulate the white middle classes than to redress the social and economic injustices of the past. Increasing economic hardship means that the living conditions of many ordinary people are worse than previously. In some quarters there is acute resentment that Namibians have nothing to show for the sacrifice of youth and health and frequently life in the liberation movement.

In spite of this, in the community, people with different experiences of the war, are at some levels, adapting well to life together. Those returned from exile with education are finding employment fairly easily, but the majority, exiles and stayers, are without paid work (Table 2). There is a well-grounded fear that unemployed ex-combatants will create unrest.

People encountering problems include ex- combatants of either side and women who have returned from exile. Most former political prisoners are also in difficulty as are those who were disabled in the war and children returned after years in Eastern Europe or Cuba. Schemes to assist the homeless and to train ex-fighters are having limited success in motivating people to become self-sufficient.

Table 2. Work status: men and women

Education level Returnees Stayers Male Female Male Female

% % % %

Some paid work 44 33 33 23 Seeking work 47 47 41 30 Not seeking work 2 4 6 12 Other 7 16 20 35 Totals (N = 1305) lOO(216) lOO(158) loO(451) lOO(462) (N missing 18)

Source: Solomon and Kandando (1993).

There is an expressed interest in business schemes, but very little knowledge of how to start.

On the labour market, returned exiles with skills are finding work (Table 3), but employers are suspicious of their qualifications and dispar- age their competency. This also incurs delay in public sector appointments.

Education and integration School children. For up to one year af-

ter return, provision was made, through the churches, for exile schools to continue inside Namibia. The purpose was to help children make the transition to the national school system more easily. Many children returning from German-speaking Europe were sent to German schools in Windhoek. The vocational school at Loudima transferred to Mushipandeka School in Ongwediva and the students, after a while, successfully completed their IGCSE examination. The vocational school at Tsumbe and UNIN expected to transfer. In the event, they closed.

Table 3. Type of employment of returnees and stayers

Employment Returnees Stayers Male Female Male Female

% % % %

Professional 31 58 16 34 Non-manual

(low) 30 27 32 26 Skilled manual 14 - 20 2 Unskilled 2 9 21 25 Armed Forces 21 2 7 _

Informal 13 Total in work &45) &70) l&132) lOO(106) (N = 353)

Source: Preston and Kandando (1993).


In the community. For the WAP report, it was observed in both rural and urban communities that people returned from exile had progressively found work since earlier studies. Not only was a greater proportion of returnees than stayers employed, they were in more advantageous positions (Solomon and Kandando, 1993). The explanation for this lies in the very different educational experiences of the two groups. Those who were in exile have significantly higher levels of formal education than those who remained in Namibia during the liberation war. There is little difference in the proportion of men and women who followed basic, vocational or academic courses (Table 4). With some surprise, a greater proportion of returnee women have been educated to Standard 10 and above than any other group (Table 5). Subsequent analysis reveals that, of the small number who have higher degrees, nearly all are men.

Table 4. Types of education: men and women (as percentages)

Male (N=310) Female (N=336)

(%) (%)

Basic schooling 8,l 678 Vocational training 29,7 30,l Academic training 62,3 63,l

Source: Tamas and Gleichmann (1993).

Table 5. Education levels: male and female returnees and stayers

Education Returnees Stayers level Male Female Male Female

% % % %

No schooling 8 2 16 13 Sub A - Std 5 38 33 44 40 Std 6 - Std 10 43 50 38 45 Above Std 10 12 15 3 2 Totals(N= 1305) (N missing 18) lOl(216) lOO(158) lOl(451) lOO(462)

Source: Solomon and Kandando (1993).

Places of training. Although Namibians who have studied abroad, whether or not as exiles, have significantly higher levels of formal schooling than those who have not had such

opportunities, there is considerable variation in the educational levels reported which relate to the parts of the world in which training occurred (Preston and Kandando, 1993).

Popular explanation for this variation is usually in terms of the quality of education offered, good or less good, rather than after consideration of the type of training and its entry and outcome levels. It goes without saying that those who were trained in countries offering advanced academic and professional training will have reached higher levels of formal education than those who were trained in countries providing basic or vocational education. On these grounds, it is not surprising that far higher proportions of those with Eastern European or African qualifications have not reached the same formal educational levels as those trained in Western Europe (Table 6).

The differences in provision have implications for the points at which graduates from different countries can enter the labour market and the type of work undertaken. High proportions of those trained in Western Europe are in senior professional careers, in comparison with people trained in Namibia or, for example, in other African countries and Eastern Europe (Table 7). (Although the country frequencies are small from the community studies, the patterns of education observed between countries are reproduced in the larger, non-random sample from the tracer study.)

There is also variation between the levels of education provided by the member states, both within and between blocs, again with predictable outcomes for attainment levels and occupational status (Preston, 1993).

With some variation, West Germany for example, the Western European contribution to the education of Namibians was primarily academic, at the level of matric and above. In the former countries of Eastern Europe, particularly in East Germany, the training was likely to have been more vocationally oriented. Similarly in African countries, there was reasonable capacity to assist Namibians with secondary education, but only to a limited extent with more advanced studies. Kenya is an exception with a high proportion of students on degree courses (Table 8).

This variation in educational opportunity is now reflected in the occupational status of returned students. Nearly 80% of those trained in Britain are in high status professional work.


Table 6. Region and levels of formal education

Highest education level

Education outside

None Some South Africa

Places educated*

Other West East Africa Europe Europe Other

Std l-5 398 126 118 % Std 6-10 (34884) i36?

(3:)

% (“59j’ (“52 (2;) !?

(i) (ia,

Above Std 10 (3;)

(“3’9’ (ii) (&

% (7) (16) (13) (67) (;:)

(550)

(25)

N 837 350 18 305 18 53 20

Source: Preston and Kandando (1993). *The sum of these five columns is greater than N in the previous column as many people who studied abroad did so in several countries.

Table 7. Occupational status by region of training

Work status

None South Africa

People educated abroad

Other West East No. ofcourses Africa Europe Europe Other taken abroad

Professional % (I:) (440) (it) (7:) (ii) (4:)

103 (32)

Non-manual (low status) % Skilled (Manual) % Unskilled % Army % Informal % N

(it) (3:) (Z) (L (I:) (3:) (&

(I:) (2:) (i (1;) (1:) (::)

(2;) 1”4’

(7”, (::)

,a, (1;) (I:) (ii) (‘:,

(6) (ii) 12 29 11 325

Source: Preston and Kandando (1993)

This is true of only 50% of those trained in Cuba and one-third of those who were in East Germany (Table 8).

A more recent study finds significantly higher rates of employment in the case of students who followed similar vocational training courses in West rather than East Germany (Gleichmann, 1993). Without information about the extent to which students from West Germany were able to continue their education, it would be premature to infer discrimination.

As suggested in a further report (Preston and Kandando, 1993) it is easy to infer good quality

from training that leads to conspicuously high status work and poor quality from training in skills that are perceived to be of low status. From this position, it is only a short step to imply that the countries providing training for high status professional careers are those which provide high quality training. Countries which provide lower levels of training, by implication therefore, are seen to provide poor quality, sometimes solidarity training. As none of this is necessarily so, it is important that these complexities and their long-term effects be fully understood.

POST-RETURN INTEGRATION OF NAMIBIANS TRAINED ABROAD

Table 8. Selected countries of training, education levels attained and employmenti

309

Country

Cuba U.S.S.R. G.D.R.

Britain U.S.A. F.R.G. Sweden

Tanzania Zimbabwe Kenya

Zambia Angola

R.S.A.

Total sample

Source: Preston (1993b).

N

7.5 41 74

107 46 23 22

79 37 23

317 450

27

651

Matric and Graduates/ Senior Above (incl. post-graduates management/

graduates high and post-graduates) professional

% % %

(75)

{:;I I::{ [:;I (22) (32)

I;;; I;:; I;:{

I:;{ I:$ I:;{

(34) [$ [;;; (61) (61) I:;;

i:; :;:I I:;;

(91) (57) (71)

(58) (25) (40)

Recognition and relevance of qualifcutions in Less positively, nearly half the respondents Namibia felt the demands of their current job to be

Problems of skill recognition and credit transfer in respect of overseas qualifications by both public and private employers were reported in detail in the WAP report (Tamas and Gleichmann, 1993; see also Appendix 2). About one-fifth of tracer study respondents felt that non-recognition of their qualifications had been a problem in finding employment. Similarly, since 1990, about one-fifth of those interviewed had applied to continue their studies in Namibia. Many were given no recognition for their previous qualifications.

below their level of competence (44%). Gender differences were slight, with slightly more men than women dissatisfied. No significant differences were noticed in respect of the relevance of training for employment according to age. Although not significant, people aged 30-39 had less problems in finding a job relevant to their field of training than older or younger groups.

More than 80% of those interviewed were of the opinion that their current work did relate to one or other of the fields in which they had been trained. This figure (which includes some who did not leave Namibia) seems high given that more than three years had passed since most of those interviewed returned to Namibia and the relevance of their training would decrease over time. Educational levels did not affect these perceptions. Only about 20% of the men and 16% of women indicated that their current work was not relevant to their previous training.

Some 15% of respondents felt that their political affiliation had a positive effect on their employment since independence. Almost a third felt that it had affected them negatively. The majority did not feel their political affilia- tions had affected their opportunities.

Almost 40% of the respondents felt negatively affected by being a former exile. There were no differences in response between men and women. Oshiwambo-speakers felt more negatively affected (47%), than Otjiherero- speakers (24%).

Political affiliation may have been less of a problem with employers than the fact of having been in exile. This may explain why generally a smaller proportion, around 30%,


felt that they had been negatively affected by their party support, than the average 40% that had been affected by being returned exiles.

In summary. So far it appears that, in spite of marked differences in the levels and types of experiences, the education of Namibians in exile has been highly relevant to the labour market needs of the newly independent state. That this to date cuts across gender, ethnic and political divisions, in part attributed to the constitutional principle of reconciliation (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1991) is largely a reflection of the gross deficit of investment in human capital during the apartheid regime. The picture however remains incomplete without an appraisal of the relevance of the particular skills acquired to the post-war labour market.

Curriculum relevance At the time that the WAP report was pre-

pared, no analysis had been done of the relevance of subjects studied abroad to career development after return. Some work has since been undertaken to provide such information in respect of those who studied in Britain (Preston and Kandando; Preston, 1993b).

Courses in Britain. Courses followed by Namibian students in Britain ranged from practical skill training in institutes of further education and upper levels of secondary education through to post-graduate, post-experience professional training and higher degrees.

Given the known skill deficit among the black population in Namibia, more than three quarters of the courses followed by Namibian students in Britain provided direct professional training (Table 9). Students sponsored by the British Council and Africa Educational Trust (AET) fitted this pattern, as did those from Christian Aid, but to a lesser extent. In the case of World University Service (WUS), half of their students underwent science training on their, educationally more basic, Campus and Access schemes.

Sixty per cent of Namibians in Britain were trained in one or more fields concerned with the provision of education, a reflection of the need to compensate for the poor quality of bantu education. Of those trained as teachers (30% of the total for whom information was

provided), the majority were prepared to teach non-mother tongue English (80%).

Some 13% of the courses followed were in social science or liberal arts disciplines. In science, technology and other applied skills the proportion was 11% .

Of the women who studied in Britain (37% of those for whom information was provided), 40% trained to teach. This compares with 24% of the men. In contrast, the proportion of men in every other field of education (administration, curriculum development and so on) was significantly greater than the proportion of women.

On aggregate, although women are represented among those trained in other fields, the proportion of men is greater than the proportion of women in nearly all. Exceptions to this are engineering and police training, from which women are excluded. In contrast, no men underwent secretarial training.

More than three-quarters of the students, women as well as men, were on degree courses or above. Of those following post-graduate courses, the proportion of men was greater.

There is quite some difference between the educational attainment levels of Herero and Owambo groups who studied in Britain. Of the 24 Herero members interviewed (nearly all of whom were men), 16 had degrees or higher degrees (67%). This compares with the Owambos for whom the proportion was 34% (N=71).

The implications of these distributions, com- bined with those of access to post-graduate training are several. In the main: women will be bunched within a narrow band of occupations; men will insert across the spectrum of the professional labour market; men will be in positions that are senior to those of women; proportionately, but not numerically, Hereros will be more advantaged than Owambos.

Since return. It proved possible to trace some 60% of the names of Namibians provided by British agencies. Of these it is known that 15 (nearly 2%) had died during or after their time in the U.K. While nearly 5% were reported as unemployed, there is no way of knowing if this rate would increase among those for whom no information was obtained.

Pre-employment activities. Contrary to government expectations, post-independence mo-


Table 9. Subjects studied by Namibian students in Britain

Subject Women Men

N % N % N %

Social Science/Arts Law related Development studies Other social sciences

Science/applied skills Sciences Engineering Applied Skills Agriculture/fishery

Professional/skills training Health related Teaching Educational admin Other education skills Administration Secretarial Police Other courses

Valid cases Cases missing information

105 (13) 32 (11) 73 (15) 23 (3) 34 48 (6) 13 75 (IO) 19 (7) 56 22 13 (3) 28 12

601 (77) 233 (82) 368 (74) 27 (4) 12 (4) 15 (3)

237 (25) 94

109 69 (11) 22 21 (4) 22 (3) 13 (3)

781 (loo) 284 (loft) 497 (loo) 23


bility in Namibia has been high, largely associated with the search for work. Of those who had studied overseas, three-quarters had moved up to three times since returning home, largely between Owambo and Windhoek. Ten per cent had moved more than this. While these patterns are true of those who trained in the U.K., a greater proportion of those sponsored by U.K. agencies had returned overseas since their return (21% compared with 16% across the sample). Twelve of those sponsored by British agencies had sought further training once they had returned home, approximately the same proportion as in the overall sample.

Some 50 former U.K. students were said to be living outside Namibia. Some were continuing their studies. Others had returned to Namibia on completion of their course. They had left again in association with their work or for further study.

Course relevance to employment. In the WAP tracer study, 82% of those interviewed and in work were sure that their overseas training was relevant to their current employment. In the case of those who had undertaken some of their training in the U.K., this rises to nearly 90%.

Just over half the WAP respondents felt that they were employed at the level they would

have expected, given their qualifications. Forty- four per cent felt that they were overskilled for their current position. These figures are 61% and 34%) respectively, in the case of those who studied at some time in Britain.

A small number of respondents (about 4% in each sample) felt that they were in jobs above the level that they would have anticipated.

Researcher observations of U.K. course relevance to employment, using the WAP database, confirm the very high relevance of levels of training to employment at the time of making the trace (Table 10).

Skills and employment. Many Namibians are single-mindedly determined, regardless of their skills, to acquire a position in government, with anticipated material and status benefits. Few have fully understood the personal implications of recent changes in the international economy and what this means in the long-term for both livelihood strategies and government will or ability to provide such security.

With Namibia’s independence from South Africa, there was a need for Some expansion of the public sector to fill new functions of state and reform old ones. This was not matched by private sector growth. Not surprisingly, therefore, the majority of Namibians who have


Table 10. The relevance of training levels to employment

General Specific Not N relevance (%) relevance (%) relevant (%)

Below matric 7 5 1 (14) Vocational 30 8 22

Matric + 51 10 41 (80) Degree level 174 52

I::1 114

; &

Post-degree 152 47 (31) 104 I::; 1 (1)

Total 414 122 (29) 282 (68) 10 (2)

Source: Preston (1993b)

Table 11. Training levels and employment

Unemployed (%) Public (%) Private (%) NGO (96) Student (%) N

Below matric Vocational 1 Matric + 2 Degree level 6 Post-degree 12

Total 21

Source: Preston (1993b)

3 1 2 1 7 24 2 3 1 31 47 2 2 _ 53

150 9 15 15 195 138 6 9 4 169

(5) 362 (80) 20 (4) 31 (7) 21 (5) 455

found employment since 1990 are in the public sector. Only 20% of women and of men, were in work outside the public sector (Table 11).

Information was obtained for only eight of those given police training, all of whom work for the state (Table 12). The whereabouts of only three of eight trained in computing were known. In contrast, all of those trained in international relations and diplomacy are working for the government, several of them for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Those trained as secretaries and secretary trainers are also well integrated. Nearly every one had work that required the use of the skills acquired in the U.K. (Tables 13 and 14).

Exiles and non-exiles. In the WAP project, community studies confirmed that returned exiles in Namibia had overall higher levels of education than the population who had remained in the country during the independence war (Solomon and Kandando, 1993). In the study tracing those with foreign qualifications, 6% (N=38) were not exiles. Nearly all, (N=34), had followed academic careers, while 30% (N=189) of returned exiles had

taken lower level vocational training. The non-exiles were more likely to be in high status employment than those who were returned exiles (65.8% compared with 37.8% respectively). This is presumably a product of their generally high education, rather than of their non-exile status.

Nearly half of the 38 non-exiles interviewed had studied in Britain. The remainder had been in the U.S.A. or in South Africa.

The major U.K. sponsors gave scholarships to students inside Namibia as well as to those who had gone into exile. With the exception of those sponsored by Christian Aid, non-exiles were in a small minority on agency lists.

Educationally, the non-exiles who studied in Britain were nearly all (83%) within the narrow band of students following academic courses. This compares with 85% of the exile group. All non-exiles interviewed were employed. The proportion in high status employment was 73% compared with the exile group for whom the proportion was 83%.

These observations, for a small number of people, suggest little discrimination against the well-educated, regardless of their residential status during the war.


Table 12. Subjects studied and employment

Employment Public Other Sex Women (%) Men (%) Women (%) Men (%)

Social Science/Arts Law related Development studies Other social sciences

Science/Applied skiiis Sciences Engineering Applied skills Agriculture/fishery

ProfessionaiBkiiis training Health related Teaching Educational admin. Other educational skills Administration Secretarial Police Other courses

Valid cases

14 (10) 4 5 5

8 (5) 5

2 1

125 (8% 8

63 10 16 11 15

2

147 (loo)

40 (19) a

::

14 (7) 2 1 3 a

161 (75) 6

55 21 41 28

8 2

215 (100)

2 (7) 7 (16) 1

1 1 6

5 (17) 5 (11) 4 1 - 2 1 2

-

22 (76) 33 (73) -

10 12 1 5 3 5 3 7 2

3 4

29 (100) 45 (loo)


Table 13. Gender differences in relevance of subjects studied to employment

General (%) Specific (%) Not relevant (%) N F M F M F M F M

Social Science/Arts 10 (67) 19 (43) Law related 1 4 Dev’t studies 4 5 Other sot. SC. 5 10

Science/Applied skiils Sciences Engineering Applied skills Agriclfishery

3 (30) 2

4 W) 1

1 2 1

Professionai/Skilis Health related Teaching Education admin. Other education Administration Secretarial Police Other courses

61 (W 3

17 3 3 2 7

2

46 (25)

15 7

16 7

15

Valid cases 74 (39) 69 (28)

5 (33) 3 2 1

4 (40) 2

2

103 (71) 5

55 8 3

12 9

;

112 (59)

11 (69) 1

: 6

135 (73) 5

47

;“9 26

2 (1)

15 44 - -

1 (6) 10 16 1

4 (22) 166 185

- -

5 (2) 191 245



Table 14. Subjects work and relevance

Subject Work Relevance

N Public Other General Specific None

Computing 8 Police 21 Printing 4 International Relations 8 Journalism 4 Economics 6 Food science 3 Amounting 7 Management 12 Secretarial inst’n 10 Secretarial 13 Telecommunications 10

1 _

1

3 2 3 2 2 _ 3 1

ii _ _

1 5 2 _ 2 _

_ 3 3 8 1 2 1 8 3 2 1


Year of completion and employment. Given the labour market restrictions on refugees in countries of asylum, there is some concern among sponsors of refugee education that there will be atrophy in the time between completion of studies and skill application in countries of resettlement or after repatriation. The longer the intervening time, the greater the risk of skill loss and possibility of not finding work, or work in the desired fields at the levels expected. Observations made in the WAP report suggested that of those with foreign qualifications it was those in younger age groups at the time of the study who were more likely to be in work relevant to their interests and at anticipated levels (Tamas and Gleichmann, 1993). De facto, this implies those who completed their studies most recently.

The WAP project tracer study has data, as yet unanalysed, that will allow a full testing of this hypothesis. In the meantime, the database sample of students who studied in Britain suggests firstly that date of completion has no effect on access to information about students. It does appear, however, that those who completed more recently, who are in the main younger, have a greater probability of finding public sector employment (Table 15). (This in part supports the observations relating to age and study termination dates referred to above.) There is no indication of variation with the lapse of time since study completion in the relevance of skills acquired to required occupational skills.

Special courses. There is much concern in Namibia that courses arranged specially for Namibians did not lead to qualifications recognised in the host country and so not recognised in Namibia. In spite of persisting problems with the Evaluation of Qualifictions Unit (EQU) over the value of British creden- tials in teacher training, most of those traced who had been on special educational courses (such as those at Bell College, Selly Oak, West Sussex or Moray House) were working as teachers or in educational administration. It was not possible to obtain information about the status of the appointments held and whether or not they were on career paths. This employment implies that the labour market discrimination against graduates of such special courses may not apply universally. Surprisingly, information was obtained about only a small number of those who had trained in distance education techniques at the Institute of Education in London. This suggests that those who took the course are spread doing other education-related work, given the lack as yet of any distance education scheme in Namibia (Table 16).

implications of the U.K. studies High rates of employment and relevance of

skills to job requirements seem to indicate the soundness of British government and agency strategy in awarding Namibians scholarships for advanced academic and professional training. In this, the products of specially organised programmes and of regular U.K. courses seem

POST-RETURN INTEGRATION OF NAMIBIANS TRAINED ABROAD 31.5

Table 15. Dates of completion, occupational sector and skill relevance

Completion (year)

80-84 85-88 89-91

Work Relevance Public (%) Other (%) General (%) Specific (%)

14 (78) 5 l1 (69) 114 (81)

I;:; 50

I::; 88

181 (88)

;I

(12) 53 (26) 148


Table 16. Institutions, work and relevance

Subject Work Relevance

N Public Other General Specific None

Bell College 80 25 Selly Oak 99 51 Moray House 82 44 West Sussex College 29 17 Pittmans College 10 10 Glasgow Tech. 11 9 University of Bristol 23 13 University of Hull 19 11 UL Institute of Education 14 5

11 12 10 4 6

5 3 3

18 46 _ 38 1 15 - 3 1 9 _

11 _ 10 3


to meet the human resource needs of the been given by the State and pro tern positions newly independent state. The seeming success are created outside regular career structures to in awarding scholarships to women (40% is an enable the public sector employment of particu- achievement) is possibly undermined by the larly large and articulate excluded categories. relatively restricted range of skills to which These include those who trained and worked they were exposed and their virtual exclusion as teachers or medical personnel in the exile from higher degree schemes. community.

CONCLUSIONS

In a paper of this length and complexity infer- ences can be made at several levels. It has been amply demonstrated that education in exile, in the case of Namibia at least, can be broadly and specifically relevant to refugees’ country of origin even when sophisticated labour market needs analyses are not available. At a time of economic recession, it is those with advanced qualifications who are likely to be absorbed while those with lower level skills are not. More finely, it would be naive to think that those with work were readily absorbed. In spite of the growth of bureaucracy at the end of 1989 and through 1990, this is far from the case.

Similarly, the system for rating competency in trade skills is problematic and biased against those trained abroad. Commonly, lack of familiarity with South African machinery in the workplace is cited as the grounds for non- recognition. Private sector employers using their own tests are vehement on this point.

Although English is now the national language, private sector employers (and some public sector personnel officers) are reluctant to take on those who do not speak Afrikaans. In this, they exclude the majority of the formerly exiled population.

The formal system of credit transfer and skill recognition is still tied by the old principles of exclusion and many have had to fight for the ratification of the qualifications they have earn- ed. In some cases provisional recognition has

While the private sector can set its own rules for employment, the public appointment system has become cumbersome and subject to delay and, increasingly, abuse. A freeze on posts and planned contraction leaves old and new entrants insecure about their long-term future.

In this, Namibia is replicating strategy intro- duced in other post-war states of Africa in the


1960s and 1970s. Both Algeria and Sudan expanded their bureaucracy to avoid the frustration of returning exiles with aspirations of high status careers. Shortly afterwards, unable to meet the associated costs, numbers were reduced. It would seem that such a meas- ure is essential in the interests of short-term stability.

The Namibian data also indicate, that those with expectations of status, not only have high levels of education, but come from relatively well-educated families with work outside the subsistence sector.

These observations confirm an hypothesis derived from earlier writers on refugee movements, to the effect that those with high status in the exile community will achieve high status after return to their country of origin. It would seem that for many this observation holds good, regardless of the lapse in time since studies were completed.

The State and agency role If the Namibian leadership in exile, with

host government and agency representatives, controlled development assistance, in the form of education, to the refugee population, the independent state of Namibia now regulates access to the labour market through the creation of jobs, the ratification of those qualifications and further training. Not far behind the public face of the government officers supporting such actions are the donors. Their representatives are frequently the same people who ran local offices in Angola and Zambia and provided assistance to education as well as to other activities in the first place. The new government, well informed about debt minimisation strategies, with long experience of capitalising on humanitarian grant aid has been cautious in its financial dealings. At a time of stagnation and retrenchment, however, it cannot fulfil its ambitious reconstruction intentions without external expertise and income. To maintain donor interest it has to act, in this case, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its qualification recognition systems, to enable more of those trained abroad to work.

REFERENCES

Black, M. (1992) A Cause for Our Times: Oxfam the First 50 Years. OUP, Oxford.

Brown, S. and Dix, T. (1993) Political prisoners and

detainees in the Namibian liberation struggle. In The Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and Other War-affected Namibians (Preston, R. et al.). Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek, Namibia.

Ellis, J. (1984) Education, Repression and Liberation: Namibia. CIIRWUS, London.

Gleichmann, C. (1993) Evaluation Study of the Follow-up Programme of the Otto Benecke Foundation in Namibia. Namibia Economic Policy Research Unit, Namibia.

Kunz, E. F. (1981) Exile and resettlement refugee theory. International Migration Review 15(l), 42-51.

Makanya, S. and Tamas, K. (1993) Employer attitudes to Namibians with foreign qualifications. In The Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and Other War-affected Namibians (Preston, R. et al.). Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek, Namibia.

Ministry of Education and Culture (1992) Proposal for a National Qualifications Authority for Namibia. Government of the Republic of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia.

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (1991) The Constitution of the Republic of Namibia. Windhoek. Namibia.

Nobel, P. (1987) Notes on the right to development. In Refugees and Development in Africa (edited by Nobel, P.). Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden.

Preston, R. (1991a) The provision of education to refugees in places of temporary asylum: some implications for development. Comparhtive Education 27, i.

Preston, R. (1991b) Education for Young Mozambicans: Report of’ an Inter-agency Mission to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. UNDP/UNHCR, TPSS Re- port 91/18.

Preston, R. (1992a) Interview with a Namibian student, University of Warwick.

Preston, R. (1992b) Interview with Paul Impumba, Windhoek, Namibia.

Preston, R. (1992~) Interview with Vitalis Ankama, Per- manent Secretary, Ministry of Education and Culture, Windhoek, Namibia.

Preston, R. (1993a) Notes of an interview with the Honorable Dr Mose Tjitendero. Speaker of the Na- tional Assembly, Windhoek, Namibia.

Preston, R. (1993b) Trained in Britain: Namibians on the Labour Market at Home. Report commissioned by the Overseas Development Administration, INCED, University of Warwick, Paper 11.

Preston, R. and Kandando, D. (1993) The Situation of AET Sponsored Students After Their Return Home. Report to the Africa Educational Trust, NISER, Windhoek, Namibia.

Preston, R. and Tamas, K. (1992) Interview with the Honorable Nicky Iyambo. Minister of Health and Social Services, Windhoek, Namibia.

Preston, R. et al. (1993) The Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and Other War-affected Namibians. Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek, Namibia.

Smawfield, D. (1994) Education for Mozambique refugees in Zamibia and Malawi. Journal of Refugee Studies (forthcoming).

Solomon, C. and Kandando, D. (1993) Integration at the community level: case studies war-affected areas. In

POST-RE~RN IN~GRATION OF NAMIBIANS TRAINED ABROAD 317

The Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and Other War-affected Namibians (Preston, R. et al.). Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek, Namibia.

Tamas, K. and Gleichmann, C. (1993) Returned exiles on the Namibian labour market. In The Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and Other War-a~ected Nam~b~ans (Preston, R. et al.). Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek, Namibia.

UN (United Nations) (1983) Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. HCR/1910/ENG.

1.

NOTES

Data indicate any period of time studying in the countries selected. Some people were students in many countries and so will have been counted for each one. If they studied several courses in the same country, they are counted only once. The data do not indicate the country in which the highest level of qualification was obtained, only the general levels reached by students who studied there at some time. Nearly all students in exile studied in either Angola or Zambia at some point. A minority went on to further studies in other countries, The levels of education obtained in those countries will also have been represented as levels attained by those who had studied earlier some time in Angola.

APPENDIX 1 A project summary from Preston et al. (1993) The

Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and 0thk;r War-affected Namibians, Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek.

Purpose (1) To analyse the situation of people seriously affected

by the war of independence and the effectiveness of policy or their own efforts to facilitate their integration into society.

(2) To make recommendations to further these processes.

Rationales (3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

There are frequent indications of unrest among war affected peoples in Namibia and compl~nts that little is being done to help them. These tend to be from articulate groups, in particular former fighters and former teachers in exile schools. Overlooked is the situation of the many ordinary people who continue to suffer the effects of war. Evidence from other newly independent states in Southern Africa suggests that long-term frustration on the part of people seriously affected by war has been associated with subsequent destabilisation.

(7) A review of thinking, policy and action before and after independence concerning assistance to be provided to those still suffering the effects of war.

(8) A comparative study of integration in post-independence Zimbabwe.

(9) A review of information gathered since independence about the situation of people still seriously affected by the war.

(lO)Reanalysis of recent surveys to make full use of information available relating to war affected people.

(1l)Inclusion in contemporary surveys of questions relating to the labour market sitution of returned exiles.

(12)Cross-sectional community studies in rural, peri- urban and urban areas; appraisals of assistance directed at the disabled, ex-prisoners, the displaced and ex-combatants; an analysis of labour market integration.

(13)Report preparation.

Co-ordination Dr Rosemary Preston, University of Warwick, U.K.

Resources Funds for the project were from the Commission of the

European Communities. Additional funds were provided by ODA, AET and SIDA for supplementary reports on the labour market integration of former British and Swedish scholarship holders, respectively.

Outcomes A final report combining those of the different

components of the project and making practical recommendations for ways in which to assist Namibians in general and those in particular who are still suffering adverse effects of the liberation war.

APPENDIX 2

Taken from Tamas and Gleichmann (1993) Returned exiles on the Namibian labour market. In The Integration of Returned Exiles, Former Combatants and Other ear-affected ~arnib~~ (Preston, R. et al.). Namibian institute for Social and Economic Research, Windhoek.

The system of credit transfer: Evaluating and testing procedures

Introduction The system of credit transfer in a country can also block

individuals with training from abroad from entering the labour market. Experience from Zimbabwe, as outlined in Com~nent 3 of the WAP report, shows that it is not only the qualifications and skills of returned exiles determine access to employment. A relevant system of skills recognition which is adjusted to the available human resources and manpower needs of a country is of utmost importance for Namibia as it has been in Zimbabwe and as can be foreseen also in South Africa.

The evuluat~on of qualifications The EQU is responsible for evaluating the qualifications

obtained outside Namibia, of individuals who apply for posts within the public sector. The EQU took over this function in 1991. The evaluations made by the EQU are based on the following criteria:

(a) duration of courses (b) entry requirements


(c) relevance of content (d) level of assessment or evaluation, and (e) accreditation of the institution.

Their ratings are used to ratify appointments by public bodies. In cases where there is no known Namibian equivalent, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa is consulted.

In 1992, the EQU proposed the establishment of a new national qualifications authority. In this proposal, a number of shortcomings within the existing system were described (Ministry of Education and Culture, 1992). Among those using the system, there is widespread dissatisfaction:

(a) salary entitlements are dictated by paper qualifications (b) there is no way of evaluating occupational compet-

encies (c) there are no means of recognising skills acquired

in settings other than the formal education system, and

(d) there are no formal procedures after rating, for advising candidates what they should do to improve their qualifications to the level that they desire.

Many Namibians in exile received scholarships for post-secondary education without having completed their Matriculation Certificate (Std 10, or twelve years of schooling). Some went directly from Std 6 or 7 to post-Matric UNIN courses and higher levels. (This seems to have occurred frequently in the case of Namibians who studied in Britain.)

The Public Service Commission (PSC), which was responsible for evaluating foreign qualifications up to 1991, rated qualifications according to entry requirements of the courses studied. If Matric was lacking from a profile, post-Matric qualifications were evaluated at lower levels. In some cases, returnees with degrees, but without Matric, have been given a rating equivalent to Matric or Matric plus one year. Since the BQU took over the resuonsibihtv of evaluations from the PSC, the highest qualilication’achieved is acknowledged even if MatTic is lacking. EQU ratings take account of course length and content, more than course entry-levels. As described by the Deputy Director of the EQU

(W)e don’t require that people should have Matric; we compare the contents of the foreign courses with the Namibian ones. The lack of entry standards does not affect our evaluations. Our Matric is not an indicator of successful post-matric studies. The exit competency must be evaluated to be the same, no matter the entry standards.

(Interview with Mr Niels Jaffa, Deputy Director, Evaluation of Qualifications Unit,

Ministry of Education and Culture.)

Before this change, in the first period after independence, many of the returnees without Matric, even if they had degrees, were not considered as qualified at degree levels.

In the private sector, employers are still unwilling to recognise degrees without Matric. According to one EQU representative,

(b)usinessmen always say that if you don’t have Matric, then you are not competent. They are hung up on Matric.

The EQU has some practical difficulties with finding information about the Namibian equivalent standard of a wide variety of foreign courses. Problems are encountered when evaluating the duration and successive levels of courses. Although there was an attempt to encourage exiles to keep within the same field of study on successive courses, in practice this was not always possible. Many courses were very short. Courses of less than a year are not normally accredited by the EQU. According to a personnel manager in the public sector, this practice has led to the under-evaluation of some certificates. Students who took several parallel courses are the worst affected. Although they have many years of education, both employers and the EQU rate their qualifications at much lower levels than the applicants expect. Applicants feel that these formal requirements prevent recognition, even when they do have the skills required for the job in question.

Many returned exiles have had difficulties with qualifications not recognised by employers in the private sector. There, Matric still appears to be an important yardstick for employers when assessing foreign qualifications. Among private employers, as shown in Subcomponent 11 (b) of this report, there is a distinct lack of familiarity with foreign certificates. One explanation for this is the extreme isolation of the Namibian labour market before independence. The private companies have had very little exposure to foreign certificates other than those from South Africa. Likewise in the public sector before independence, South African criteria were generally applied and hardly any other foreign certificates were approved.

Private employers tend to disregard the evaluations made by the EQU when assessing the qualifications of Namibians with foreign certificates. As the EQU only makes evaluations for the public sector, the private sector has no obligation to accept them. Extending the recognition of evaluations made by EQU would be an important step on the way to increasing access to employment of foreign-trained Namibians. Participation of private sector representatives in the evaluation process appears to be imperative if private companies are to approve of EQU evaluations.

Recognition of qualifications in some of the more specialised professions (medicine, engineering, accountancy) is controlled by professional boards. Experience from Zimbabwe shows that the regulations of these conservative and rigid bodies often have functioned as impediments for exiles who trained in these professions overseas. Similar problems have been noted in Namibia (see component 11 (b)). The EQU has expressed concern with this situation. There is a case for adjusting the regulations of professional boards to the available human resources and the needs of the Namibian economy.

The EQU evaluates both academic and vocational certificates. However, it can only take formal documenta- tion into account and has no means of rating or testing vocatonal skills. Many people with skills but without the appropriate documents and certificates feel that they are not adequately evaluated by the EQU. An interim council for trade-testing has been established within the Ministry of Labour and Manpower Development (MLMD). However, it only operates on a very small scale. The council undertakes testing and evaluation only in cases where somebody is not satisfied with the evaluation made by the EQU. There is an apparent need


for more resources to be channelled to the trade-testing council and for it to become fully responsible for the testing of artisan and vocational skills. The trade-testing facilities currently available are examined below.

Trade-testing The Trade-Testing Council within the MLMD administers

tests of vocational skills up to artisan level. The contents of the formal vocational trade tests available in Namibia are, however, still controlled from South Africa.

In South Africa some 85 trades are tested. Intemation- ally this counts as a low number. In Namibia only about twenty trades are tested. This creates distinct problems when it comes to finding an appropriate test for a range of skills in which returnees were trained. Concern with these limitations was expressed by a representative of the Namibia National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NNCCI) involved in trade tests:

(W)ith this limited variety of trades people are not tested for what they know in the trade tests, they are tested in what they don’t know.

Moreover, he identified a lack of adjustment of the few available tests to the Namibian labour market.

(T)rade tests are only given twice a year. Certain requirements must be filled by the candidate before doing the test. Many returnees do not manage them although they might have practical skills that would qualify them for a test.

The failure rate in the trade tests has been very high, up to 80% of the candidates. Reasons for this include language problems and measurement systems, neither of which necessarily corresponds to the requirements for jobs in Namibia. A serious outcome of this trade-testing system, according to the NNCCI representative, is that

(p)eople are told their qualifications are not good enough, they lose confidence, they fall out and become semi-skilled. It’s a rotten system that should be changed. It’s difficult to talk about integrating returnees into the existing system, a system where their chances are very meagre. The whole system should be changed.

Tbe MLMD has begun to place Namibians in charge of the trade tests and eventually of the whole trade-testing system. For the moment, Namibians will be responsible for the tests, and the South Africans will continue to ratify them.

There are also plans to set up a new Namibian Vocational Training Centre under the MLMD. The private sector would be involved through the chambers of commerce. The government would contribute with the physical training-facilities. The private sector would render financial support and provide work experience during training. In this way, the private sector will come to have a part in the design of syllabus, curriculum and work practice. Within this new system, provision should

be made for testing and upgrading skills of, among others, returned exiles with insufficient or inadequate training.

Appo~n?ment procedures in the public service Appointment procedures within the public and private

sectors also play a decisive role in access to employment. The private sector system has been described in component 11 (b). The public sector appointments’ system will be briefly described below.

The system in use for advertising available jobs and filling vacant posts within the public administration is at present highly bureaucratic. A minimum of three months passes between the advertisement of a post and its occupancy. There are several delays in the processing of applications. Personnel officers, appointment committees chaired by the permanent secretary within the relevant ministry, the PSC and the EQU, are all involved. Applications can be passed back and forth several times between these departments. One of the delays, which pa~icularly affects returnees, is when applications with qualifications obtained outside Namibia are sent to the EQU for evaluation. There is also some confusion as to whether it should be the responsibility of the applicant or of the personnel officers to do this.

One of the major functions of the PSC is to prevent appointments being made on grounds other than merit. This is done by ratifying the qualifications of people to be appointed in the public sector. While not completely successful, the process incurs additional delays in making appointments. The PSC can make recommendations in favour of candidates with the most suitable qualifications for a particular post, but it has less conviction arguing against ministerial preferences which are made in the interests of affirmative action. Given the lack of clear regulations, the permanent secretaries in the ministries come to have extensive control over appointment decisions. Personnel officers have stated that affirmative action now is widely applied. Not only white males but also so-called Coloureds have great difficulty in finding employment or in obtaining promotion within the public sector.

Until there are regulations concerning affirmative action it will be difficult to smooth over these problems associated with the filling of new posts. A draft bill on affirmative action has been proposed by the ILO, but it has not yet come into effect.

Some highly skilled returnees have come into top- level positions through affirmative action, particularly in those ministries that were created after independence. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of communication between levels of personnel within ministries. As many returnees came into higher managerial positions without previously having worked in government administration, there may be suspicion towards them at middle and lower levels. This has in several instances prevented the cooperation between various levels in the administration. Hopefully, these problems will evaporate with time and as clear directions for affi~ative action are established.

States, statelessness and education: Post-return integration of Namibians trained abroad

Documents

Transcript of States, statelessness and education: Post-return integration of Namibians trained abroad