Building Namibia for Competitiveness through Open and Distance Learning: A Critical Review

Throughout human history, learning has been a continuous process acquired through the three methods of education, training and development. Traditionally, formal learning has been restricted to the classroom setting. But, as the society develops, a paradigm shift occurs in the system of impacting knowledge to people. In the older system, people move towards the classroom to acquire knowledge, but now education is brought to the people wherever they are and in whatever circumstances they may be. Every society is always confronted with one form of competition or another, and except countries develop their peoples through education and human capital formation, their economies stagnate. Consequently, the quality and quantity of all educational opportunities accessible to its citizenry determine their levels of industrialisation and human development indices. From the foregoing, the paper attempts to examine the history of the formal school system, open and distance learning vis-à-vis the primary, secondary and tertiary educational settings, in Namibia. More specifically, the paper will assess the strategies adopted by government in making education available to all, through open and distance learning and to further recommend ways on how open and distance learning could be managed for competitive advantage and optimum benefits