The Namibian President announces a free higher education, saying that “fees have fallen”

Namibia’s new president has announced that university fees will be rejected from 2026.

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the first female president of the country, made the message during her maiden address on the nation on Thursday night.

Turning to the legislators, Nandy-Natwa said that students would not pay “registration fees (or) for training” at all public universities and technical colleges.

However, she said there would be no “significant” additional funding, raising questions about the feasibility of the scheme.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said that free university education would be gradually and that the only “contribution as families and students will so far be for accommodation and other related expenses”.

“We have heard the shouts,” The fees fell, “she said, a reference to previous students’ requests in Namibia, as well as neighboring South Africa.

She said that the money would come from the subsidies already given to some of the public universities in the country and the money allocated to the student’s financial assistance fund.

“If we are going, we will not add a significant (amount of funds),” she said.

Primary and secondary education is now free of charge in all public schools in the country.

While some student organizations welcomed Nandi-Ndaitwah’s message, others criticized it as impossible and unclear.

One of them is the affirmative repositioning of the Student Command (ARSC), which said it was simply a search for attention from Namibia’s government.

“There is no plan. It’s just a confused message that raises () the question of what it means (Nandi-Ndaitwah) through higher education,” the organization told the BBC.

By developing, ARSC has asked which students will benefit – graduates or only students – as well as where the funding will come from.

This sounds the moods expressed by Tannen Gronewald, an economist who speaks to the local news site The Windhoek Observer.

He suggested that the fees for scrapping without providing additional funding could lead to a limitation of the number of students.

He also speculates that in the end, this can only be applied to low -income households.

It happened in neighboring South Africa.

In 2017, the government gave up calls for the elimination of higher education fees that were made during what was known as the #Feesmustfall protests – but only a small number of students took advantage.

Since then, she has been criticized as too limiting, since the so -called “missing middle” has been excluded – those who are considered too wealthy to qualify for financial aid but who are struggling to afford training fees.