The education ministry, which is set to spend N$10 billion of its N$13,7 billion budget on salaries, is considering letting some staff at both national and regional level go.
Another N$1,4 billion will be reserved for pension and social security contributions. Personnel expenditure increased by N$757 million from last year's allocation.
Education executive director Sanet Steenkamp, who revealed these figures yesterday in Windhoek, directed the regions to consider restructuring.
Steenkamp said this during the ministry's annual budget review.
She said all managers should make bold structural changes to be able to do much more with the available resources.
"All of us, head office and the regions, I am asking you to go back to the drawing board, go back to our offices, sit with our staff, and come up with a revised structure that we will need to submit where you trim extensively," the executive director urged.
Steenkamp said the ministry needs to let go of some of their more than 39 000 staff members to enhance efficiency.
"Those are the tough and key decisions we have to make because we are at this critical point," she stated, adding that they would have to cope without certain senior management positions as well as some administrative officals.
"The ministry has been successfully implementing the compensatory reduction strategy as enforced by the Office of the Prime Minister, where critical analysis is made of vacant posts, whereby some are abolished via the Public Service Commission," she noted.
Steenkamp said structural changes have already been affected, and only the essential positions are submitted to the secretary to Cabinet for approval.
"However, teachers and educators are central to the provision of education to all children in schools and beyond, and the ministry will ensure that teaching and learning are not compromised in any way," she said.
The executive director added that this is stated in the context that directors continue to address overstaffing in the regions, and transfer teachers to understaffed schools.
Omaheke regional education director Pecka Semba told The Namibian yesterday that it will not be easy to trim staff, but looking at their wage bill, it needs critical interventions.
He said the regions need to reconsider their structures to see if they can function with smaller staff complements. The Namibia Public Workers Union's (Napwu) general secretary, Peter Nevonga, yesterday said the ministry did not consult them on the matter, so they regard it as a non issue until otherwise informed.
The Teachers Union of Namibia's secretary general, Mahongora Kavihuha, told The Namibian yesterday that they disagree with the trimming of staff, neither do they condone the ministry maintaining useless positions.
Kavihuha noted that the issue of the budget was because of the planning by the ministry and that they should not introduce hostile situations.
The unionist suggested that the ministry should redesign or redefine its structure to get rid of those in "useless" positions and shift them to better positions where their services could be better utilised.
One of those positions Kavihuha cited as useless were school inspectors, who he said should be redeployed.
