Namibia - Administration, Finance, & Educational Research

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Namibian Constitution enumerated children's rights, including those of education and health. In order to improve literacy, which is 80 percent at present, the government allocates 31 percent of the national budget to education and an additional 15 to 20 percent towards health. However, due to outmoded policies and laws, and an untrained teacher workforce, there is inadequate attention to child welfare. Consequently many children, especially those belonging to the San group, do not attend school, and it is difficult for the government to offer basic protections to children below the age of 14 (the minimum age for employment), who live and work on family and commercial farms and in the informal sector. The 1991 census estimated that of the 13,800 children under 15 years of age in the labor force, 41 percent were working as unpaid laborers. Approximately 2 percent of farm workers, mainly from the San ethnic group, were children.