Introduction
Each and every government has a government budget which is or are payments received by the government through taxes (income tax) and other fees and also the payments made by the government itself. The government will have a deficit when it spends more than it has and a surplus if it spends less than it has. The republic of Namibia has recently had a budget cut due to the economic crisis. This essay will explain the effect that budget cuts had on the different ministries of the government and how it affected the quality of education. It will also focus on how it affected the university on Namibia, which is one of the institutions of higher learning in the country.
According to Xinhou (2016) there was a memo sent out by the respective regional offices, where the education permanent secretary Sanet Steenkamp said that there will be no replacements for all the teachers who are going on a full paid study leave. In addition, the permanent secretary continues to say that any arrangements should not put pressure on the other teachers who might volunteer to take up extra responsibilities of those who are going out on a full paid study leave. The memo indicates that no advertisements for vacancy posts of teachers should be posted without the permission of the permanent secretary. Xinhou continues to inform us of the secretary’s saying, informing that all external training programs and symposiums that will have financial implications have been banned with immediate effect. All this will affect the quality of education as teachers will be few, leaving leaners behind in the syllabus and now some teachers will have too many responsibilities to deal with. This will make the process of teaching ineffective.
Effects of budget cuts on schools in Namibia
Furthermore, in the 2016/2017 financial year, the education budget was forecasted at N$12.3 billion, the budget decreased to N$11.9 billion, Gervasius (2017). The author adds that in the same way the government can no longer afford to purchase furniture, textbooks, computers or information technology equipment for the schools. The ministry is also unable to implement crucial capital projects such as the building of schools, classrooms, hostels and teachers housing.
Effects of budget cuts on the learners that have technical vocational subjects
Gervasius (2017) says that there are no more funds to buy needed materials and other equipment for technical vocational subjects such as design and technology, home ecology and elementary agriculture just to name a few. Subjects such as arts, music, and drama are also given less or reduced timetable space says gervasuis (2017). The cuts are affecting the effectiveness of teaching and learning as the budget for textbooks and other important resources had been slashed.
Effects of budget cuts on the teachers
This pressure of less support for in subject content and methodology, and to learners with additional learning needs, due to the fact that inspectors of education and subject advisors now hardly visit the schools. The jobs of guiding and supporting school management and subject teachers is now the responsibility of the principals and the head of departments says Gervasuis (2017). The author tells the us the readers that IT staff at regional offices cannot visit schools, so the teachers have less support when things go wrong at school and this often as school computers are old and well past their shelf life. The budget has really affected the education of students in a way that guiding and supporting no longer is available to monitor the teaching and learning processes.
Effects of budget cuts on the basic education ministry and the ministry of transport.
The budget cuts have really come the worst moment of time. It had affected almost all parts of the economy. According to the new era newspaper, the basic education ministry says that it only has or received enough money to pay salaries, with little of its money going to the maintenance or construction of new schools at a time when pictures of dilapidated schools dominated news pages. It further tells that the ministry of transport, which is already being chased by the people or organisations they owe money to, as it has only been allocated enough money to pay of a portion of what it owes its contractors for work done in the year 2016.
Effects of budget cuts on the Namibian police force.
The Namibian police force was also affected by the budget cuts that happened this year. A newspaper article in the new era informs us that the Namibian police have no choice but to park a significant amount of the service vehicles across the country, after its budget for fuel alone was slashed by 82 percent. According to the police inspector lieutenant ‘general Sebastian Ndeitunga, the Namibian police force received only 20 million for fuel, while in the past they used to be allocated 110 million per year.
Effects of budget cuts on the electoral commission of the republic of Namibia.
The article in the new era further tells us that the electoral commission of Namibia say that its entire allocation this year is only equal to which one of its departments previously received, and this may prevent them from being able to carry out any by-elections, or any party elections in a year that is poised for the ruling swapo party congress and elections. It’s not satisfied with its budget allocations which was cut from 106 million to 66 million in the current financial year. With such a huge cut this will definitely hinder or change the electoral commissions plans and have to be forced to reduce its cost and cut out some.
Institutions who were affected by the budget cuts made by the government
Recently this year the country was in an economic crisis and one of the causes of this was budget cuts. According to a newspaper article written by Menger (2017) the government cut its budget of funding to the public institutions such as the University of Namibia (UNAM), Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST), and the Namibian Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF). These budget cuts will have a negative effect on the quality of education provided to students.
Effects of budget cuts on the University of Namibia(UNAM)
According to Xinhua (2017) the stiff budget cuts will affect the flagship programs that can contribute to the national development of the university of Namibia(UNAM), the university vice chancellor said on Tuesday. Xinhua (2017) further says that the budget cut is expected to have an effect on the implementation of the university’s national flagship programs such as Dentistry, Anaesthetic, Engineering, Animal health and Medicine just to name a few said Lazarus Hangula during the official opening of the 2017 academic year held in Windhoek on Tuesday. The source further indicates that for the past three years, UNAM received a budget allocation of 1.1 billion Namibian dollars (about 80 million US dollars) to deliver services to its 21000 students, but now it was reduced to 600 million Namibian dollars (43 million US dollars) to deliver the same services to its 24000 students registered for the 2017 academic year. The budget cut also caused telecom Namibia to cut the use of the TN card (3G) as the university doesn’t have enough funds.