Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo: a passion for education.

"My life and my joy as an academic started from primary school. I got
excited about reading and studying and started wondering 'where does
education end?' People told me you had to study up to a PhD."

Little did Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo know then that her education would be a never-ending process. Even after numerous university degrees including a PhD to her name, new career challenges led her again and again to improve her academic qualifications for new fields of work.

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Her most recent challenge is different, since Namibia's new state president, Hifikepunye Pohamba, called on her to join Namibian politics. And so Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo exchanged the field of academic analysis with the arena of political action and became Namibia's Deputy Minister of Education. "I have always tried to be academically correct, now I am learning to be politically correct," she laughs.

Looking at her life there is no doubt that Ndjoze-Ojo will meet this new challenge with the same determination as the numerous challenges before. Dr. Becky, as she is sometimes called, was born in Windhoek as the last of nine children and fondly remembers how she was spoilt as the "baby of everybody." She especially remembers the love of her father, who showed his affection and deep love openly, even when she got older, and inspired her to also love her own children without reservation.

Support and challenges on the way

She describes her mother as a very hard working person, who used to walk from the Old Location to Nelson Mandela Avenue every day where she worked as a domestic, sometimes carrying little Becky on her back. Her father, a pastor, was the driving force behind her early education, and her older brothers urged her on. She started school in 1965 at the Rhenish Missionary School in the Old Location when she was nine years old, and two years later went to the newly-opened Good Hope school at Okovimburu Pos 10 in the east, not far from the home village of her father.

After completing her Standard 6 there she returned to Windhoek to attend Augustineum Secondary School, but her education suffered a setback when she fell pregnant during her second year and had to leave school before completing Standard 8 (Grade 10) to give birth to her son.

This could have been the abrupt end of her school career. But the young Becky did not give up. She studied diligently at home and registered with a private institution to sit for the Standard 8 exams, which she passed with flying colours. She returned to Augustineum, this time to study for the two-year Primary Teaching Certificate, while studying for Matric as well. After passing both exams at the same time she started her teaching career at Theo Katjimuine Primary School in Katutura. Her mother was an important motivation during this period and helped her to look after her baby.

Marriage and a Masters Degree

The second challenge to her academic career was her marriage. Through her afternoon volunteer work of teaching English in courses run by the Council of Churches in Namibia, Ndjoze-Ojo had received a scholarship from Christian Aid for studies in Great Britain for a Bachelor Degree in Education (Communication Studies). That is where she met her Nigerian husband-to-be. "I wanted to continue with my education, also after getting married," she remembers. "That was our agreement, despite expectations from many quarters that as a married woman I should now move to Nigeria with my husband and start a family." After a short visit to his family home, she thus returned to the UK to complete her Masters Degree at the University of Durham.

A PhD and motherhood

Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo then joined her husband in northern Nigeria and began teaching English at Ahmadu Bello University, where she also enrolled for her PhD. "It required a lot of discipline and a lot of hard work, but eventually I completed it in 1996, while working full-time and having three more children."

It was during her years in Nigeria that she developed a deep sense of being an African and the conviction that "we can do things in Africa as well." But of course her home country and Namibian family remained in her heart, especially her mother who by the end of 1995 was 82 years old. Dr. Becky was worried about her and wished to support her and return the love that she had received before her mother passed on. Fortunately the Centre for External Studies at the University of Namibia offered her a job in Distance Education, and she was able to move back to Windhoek with her children, while her husband joined them a year and a half later.

Learning for her new careers

Working in Distance Education presented a new challenge to Dr. Becky. "I had always been a lecturer of English, now I was expected to write materials for students in such a way that somebody in Katima Mulilo will understand them without you being there to explain anything." She realised that despite all her qualifications, she needed to start learning again for her new job. She consequently enrolled with the University of London and in 1998 completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Distance Education Management and Organisation, which helped her to manage her new work at the Centre effectively.

Not much later the University of Namibia (UNAM) offered Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo the post of Director of the Language Centre, based on her PhD in English and Linguistics. This time the challenge was to take over a position that involved administration and management, of which she had no experience at all. "How will I run a centre without management skills?" she asked herself. Although she felt tired of studying, in the end her enthusiasm for broadening her knowledge and skills triumphed. She enrolled for yet another course, this time for a Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration, spending many sleepless nights over her books, but finally completing it successfully. "Education is endless," Ndjoze-Ojo says, "it goes on for as long as you feel that you are still inadequate in one field. In every new area you are entering, you need new skills."

Drafted into politics

Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo dropped her plans of working towards a professorship when she was called into politics and became the Deputy Minister of Education earlier this year. She would not be true to herself if she did not enjoy this new challenge tremendously. "I'm having a great time and I think it is very important as an academic person to be in politics. I can add my academic perspective to it." But as always she is aware of the fact that she has to continue learning, especially with respect to political rhetoric. "Sometimes I speak in parliament and like it, but it's not really political enough. In parliament you have to be heard." And she definitely wants to be heard because she has much to say about Namibia's education sector.

Her main focus in her new area of work is the improvement of the quality of education in Namibia. "Education in Namibia has passed through different stages, from Missionary education to Bantu education to Education for All, but we are far from reaching our goals. We need to tackle the problem of more than half our students failing their Grade 10 exams, which is a huge number," she exclaims. "Students who have made it to Grade 10 have been in school for a long time, and the school system should ensure that learners do not fail at the end of that year."

Ndjoze-Ojo identifies the lack of quality teacher training and quality teaching as the main problem of the education sector. "We know that after independence we wanted to improve education so much, to make it a right and no longer a privilege. I was one of the fortunate 2 per cent of black children who made it into secondary education before independence compared to the 92% currently. Article 20 of the Namibian Constitution says every child should be in school until the age of 16 years, and therefore we are obliged as a nation to ensure that everybody up to this age is in school and gets the best education possible."

During the past 15 years, education reform has concentrated on providing access to school to all our children, Ndjoze-Ojo stresses, but this has been at the expense of quality. "We now need to revamp the whole education system and this time I want quality!" she states.

Promoting the education of girls

As a member of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) for many years, Dr. Becky, R. K. Ndjoze-Ojo has done much to promote the education of girls. She now heads the Namibian chapter, FAWENA, which recently addressed issues of violence and sexual abuse of girls and how teachers can read the symptoms and help the girls find a way out of their situation. She supports the work that non-governmental organisations such as the Namibian Girl Child Organisation and Sister Namibia are doing to educate girls on their rights, and welcomes advocacy based on research that identifies girls' needs. Her message to girls is never to give up their dream of a career, even if they should fall pregnant while still at school. "That shouldn't be the end of your career, it should be an inspiration, to inspire you to do even better than ever before, like I did."

Embracing Pan Africanism

The conviction that Africans must stand together in dignity, mutual support and pride is deeply rooted in Dr. Becky's identity as a Pan Africanist, an identity she enjoys expressing in her colourful African attire. "The way you dress says something about you," she explains, "it can bring you closer to the people you are dealing with or it can create a distance."

She loves to wear different Namibian traditional dresses--Owambo, Nama or Herero--to show that she feels at home in many cultures and not in one tribe only, and she just as much loves to present herself in dresses that are a mixture of cloth, patterns and styles of different African countries. "It is Pan Africa in practice, as you can see," she adds with a smile, referring to the combination she is wearing. "It speaks louder than words."

She is a founding member and former Chairperson of the Pan African Centre of Namibia (PACON), which she describes as a student initiative that developed out of a conference held at UNAM some years ago. The Centre aims to educate youth about African history from the perspective of the struggles for liberation from slavery, colonialism and apartheid, and engender an ability to go beyond the boundaries of nationalism within the borders entrenched by colonial rule "that divided us from our cousins in Angola, in Botswana ..." and re-awaken the dream of a United States of Africa nurtured by early Pan-African philosophers.

"To me Africa is home, this is where I was born and belong. Africans should know that they are Africans ... we belong here, it is our continent. To be an African is something really special."

Elizabeth IKhaxas and Liz Frank conducted the interview, Erika von Wietersheim and Liz Frank wrote up the story.