NKANDI WEST: The Kavango regional education authority has recommended that a school be built at the Nkandi West village after claims by community members that Government has neglected them since independence.

The recommendation follows a Nampa article early last month about Nkandi West villagers’ claims that Government, specifically the Ministry of Education, has turned a blind eye to their demands for a primary school in their area.

Most children born and bred in Nkandi West, some as old as 13 years, have never attended school.

Nkandi West consists of over 35 homesteads, with about 100 children, and is situated some 140 kilometres southwest of Rundu in the remote areas of the Kahenge Constituency.

Kavango regional education Deputy Director Fanuel Kapapero told Nampa on Wednesday that two teams led by the acting Nzinze Circuit Inspector Kosmos Katura, under which the village falls, visited Nkandi West last week to investigate the outcries of the community.

Kapapero said the two teams recommended that a school be established for Grades One and Two learners by next year.

The deputy director said the challenge at Nkandi West is that the village is already surrounded by two primary schools – Mbambamsi and Nkwizu – but they are very far from Nkandi West.

He indicated that the teams’ recommendations will be tabled to the regional management team for discussion and approval.

During a visit to the village early last month, this reporter found adults and children seated under a tree normally used for meetings.

Nkandi West Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson Titus Siviro told this agency at the time that the nearest school is one day’s walk away.

What puzzles the villagers even more is that the regional education office opted to convert a thatched hut structure which community members built themselves to serve as a pre-primary classroom, into a literacy classroom for elders.

They questioned why the regional education office opted for a literacy class that is apparently only attended by 17 elders, instead of using it as a formal school for children who are the country’s future leaders.

Apart from the absence of a school, Nkandi West also does not have a clinic, and the sick are forced to walk about 13 km to the nearest healthcare establishment at Mburu-Uru village.