Are our Educational Institutions simply ripping us off?

Charlotte writes to Consumer Protection group:
Are our Educational Institutions simply ripping us off?? Is the Price of Education a Realistic reflection of what we get for money? Are universities (and private institutes) in Namibia in it for the education or the money?

Private Institutions of Learning

Our constitution states:

(4) All persons shall have the right, at their own expense, to establish and to maintain private schools, or colleges or other institutions of tertiary education:

provided that:

(a) such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are registered with a Government department in accordance with any law authorising and regulating such registration;

(b) the standards maintained by such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are not inferior to the standards maintained in comparable schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education funded by the State;

Tertiary education schools are mushrooming all over the country. They provide everything from art classes, computer literacy and business skills. The problem is the standards are not very good, and most students receive a qualification which is not worth the paper it is printed on. Let us look at a typical example and call it the Tertiary Education Academy.

Tertiary Education Academy (TEA)

The owner TEA is a businessman without any qualification in education, after all, the Academy is a business and was started to make a profit. None of the staff members, including the Principal, has any professional training or recognised educational qualification. The lecturers at the Academy are also not qualified teachers.

TEA offers the following courses:

·         Typing skills

·         Bookkeeping

·         Computer Literacy – Microsoft Office

·         PC Engineering – A+ and N+

·         Software Programming

The Academy also offers Diplomas in Tourism, Public Relations, Business, Finance and Personnel Administration.

The Academy is a very profitable business and they owner is planning on offering further diploma courses.

Great! However, most of the students (and their parents) are not aware that the lecturers are not professionally qualified. Furthermore, imagine the students’ dismay when they find out that none of these courses are recognised by the Namibian Qualifications Authority. Even worse, the diploma courses are not worth more than a Grade 12 according to the Universities.

Now before we start closing all these schools, institutes and academies, let us examine their role in our country.

More and more students are completing their schooling and not finding place at the University or Polytechnic. Their parents or care-givers cannot afford the study fees in other countries, so these students have to look for employment. Having no marketable skill, they often do not find employment and become one of the unemployed.

The private tertiary education institutes offer the students an opportunity to gather knowledge about business and prepare them for gainful employment.

So what can we do?

We need to have a body that actively encourages that “the standards maintained by such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are not inferior to the standards maintained in comparable schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education funded by the State”. The NQA must be publicise the names of those that are registered and meet their standards. Furthermore, the NQA must be given teeth to close down those who do not meet the standards set within a period of time.


Note: Mr. Louw is the founder of the Namibia Consumer Protection Group but answers these submissions in his personal capacity. Mr. Louw has been a trainer at IIT (Institute of Information Technology belonging to Lodewyk van Graan) and the Secretary for the ICT Alliance of Namibia for a period of three years. Mr. Louw is presently a part-time lecturer at the Polytechnic of Namibia.

Lodewyk van Graan responds to Open Letter

Dear Milton

Thank you kindly for your response. Congratulations on your new found success, and what seems to be a positive future. You still however need to settle the past.

You are once again misrepresenting the facts for your own benefit. I’ll leave it at that and not go into the specifics. Should anyone at any time require us to provide proof of anything you did we shall be happy to do so.

I have no clout with legal shield and believe them quite capable of making decisions about who they emply on their own. Their decision might have been influenced by other factors such as the 2 court judgements against you for, shall we say questionable business practices.

Our organisation and the IPPR still want these resolved but even after numerous attempts from us and the IPPR to discuss this with you, you have always managed to avoid us and the messenger of the court finding you.

I am very surprised to hear from you and very happy. Please be so kind as to provide me with your physical address and more detail of the fixed assets you refer to so that we can settle the legal wrangling that you have with both the IPPR and our organisation.

Regards

Lodewyk van Graan
(Note: Mr. Lodewyk van Graan is the chairperson of the ICT Alliance of Namibia. He also is the owner of the Institute of Information Technology (IIT). The Alliance is the organisation that has not paid the salary, while IIT is the company that advanced monies against the salary that was due. After Mr. van Graan indicated to me that I cannot work for both organisations, I decided to work for the ICT Alliance and improved the ICT environment. Unfortunately, Mr. van Graan as Chairperson of the Alliance as well as the owner of the company making money from my tutoring, made this impossible.) __________________________________________________________

My reply:
Thank you Lodewyk.

I am a person who believes in really letting it all out. I am glad you wish to do so too.

Funny, the Messenger of the Court is using my data and they know my exact details - even have a nulla bona signed because of the behaviour of creditors who use legalese to get debt written up. I am even advocating a law to provide debt counselling to poor Namibians.

Be that as they may I look forward to making this a discussion about my past. Do yourself a favour though, read my book. Everything you are alluding to is stated in it - including my debts and how they were occurred.

Perhaps also read my blog in this regard: http://milton-louw.blogspot.com/2009/04/me-and-bad-debts.html - - I will also now add the IIT problems with cheques signed by board members in your presence and the none payment of my salary - and of course the money that you got from the Ministry of ICT to go to Brazil that has still not been explained. Feel free to rebuff and use the hearing report that states ICT Alliance was acting illegally by not paying me - and this did not give me the right to act unethically.

I once again thank you for publicising more of the information. These things need to get out there.

Kind regards and look forward to your next correspondence

Open letter to Lodewyk van Graan, Chairperson of the ICT Alliance of Namibia

Dear Lodewyk,

I am glad the ICT Alliance is eventually having its AGM tomorrow and I hope many people attend. But please stop blaming me for all the mishaps at the organisation.

I quote
"We all have concerns regarding the upcoming AGM as we have been left in a lurch by the previous secretary to a certain extent. Much of our documentation and records were lost as a result of what I believe to be malice from our previous secretary after being implicated in unethical behaviour and who was duly terminated. We have, since his departure been building up our records again and will to the best of our ability present an accurate report on the past term of the Alliance. "

You cut me off from the server at IIT before we even had a disciplinary hearing. Quite honestly, it was the best thing you ever did. Even for me, having a hearing find me guilty in a job that has not paid me a salary for a eight months was great!! It gave me a chance to write a book and now I head over 5,000 members of the Namibia Consumer Protection Group on issues such as the Nampower increase.

So please, if you want to put blame somewhere, leave me out of it.

Malice (A desire to harm others or to see others suffer; extreme ill will or spite) is not something you would ever find in me. That is what you did when you called Legalshield and got them to withdraw their job offer the morning I was supposed to start. And even for that I am happy. By not taking the job, I now have 500 hectares in the Otjimbingwe district.

Kind regards, I will always be thankful to you for the opportunity to teach so many Namibians while at your company,

Milton

___
"A noble heart cannot suspect in others the pettiness and malice that it has never felt. "

No to leaderless consumer protest actions in Namibia

The NCPG is a non-profit Namibian organisation that campaigns for customer rights and focuses on illegal and unethical behaviour by Namibian companies.

As a lobby group, we believe that we need to be involved with Government, State-Owned Enterprises, Community-Based Organisations and the Media in our efforts to protect the rights of the consumer.  In this regard, we believe strongly in interaction to find solutions facing us all in Namibia.

During the past two weeks we have been calling for action against the Nampower proposal for a 35% price increase in the provision in Electricity. Our website and email newsletter started a petition that clearly states our objections and is aimed at the Electricity Control Board who is the body responsible for deciding upon the increase, or not. This was taken one step further by the “We don't accept the 35% electricity price increase from Nampower” group on Facebook started by UK-based community activist Jade McClune.

It is with regret that we wish to inform the public through this statement, that we no longer can support the unilateral decisions being proposed by Mr McClune for us here in Namibia to undertake street actions. Such protest should be organised locally and have clear indications of who the leaders are, and these leaders must be present to show they are in the forefront of such action.

As much as we desire attention to this cause, we cannot condone actions that are not clearly aimed at addressing the problem, rather than becoming a platform for unrest. Thus, while as individuals we will attend the planned protest march, as a lobby group we must insist that such actions have clearly defined leadership that is present at such actions.

We assure all the consumers in Namibia that we will continue to work in your best interest by working together with Government and business in ensuring your rights are respected.

We will continue the fight for consumers. It is “Our Money, Our Rights”.

Milton Louw

Founder                                                                                  

Crucifixion vs. Resurrection

Last night I had dream:

Since the crucifixion of Jesus there has been a family of one of his disciples that managed to take down his cross and keep it hidden. This family stayed in the Middle East and found things becoming very difficult during the time of the Ottoman Empire as they had become Christians. The Patriarch decided to entrust their mission of looking after the cross to one of his most trusted friends to happened to be of the Muslim faith.

The Muslim family has been keeping the secret of the safekeeping of the cross of Jesus since this time. Recently, the descendants of the original family wished to have the cross returned to them. The two families have always been close and a meeting was held to discuss the matter.

The head of the Muslim family was however not agreeable with the suggestion and kept putting up obstacles to the return.

The Christian Patriarch discovered that since the time of the handover to the Muslim family, many unexplainable things had happened to the family and their success, riches and fame had increased tremendously. Obviously, the task of looking after the cross had benefited this family and they would be reluctant to part with it.

This difficulty caused problems with the relationship between the families and they became every distant and mistrusting of one another.

After much thought, he realised the truth of the matter.

They were spending much time talking about the object representing the crucifixion, rather than recognising it is the resurrection that is important.

My understanding of the dream: We spend too much time telling others about our suffering, rather than rejoicing on how we overcame it.