First Gentlemen launches foundation … places boy child plight at centre

New research shows Namibia’s boy child is falling further behind in education, with boys repeating grades and leaving school at higher rates than girls.

Women continue to dominate enrolment and graduation at tertiary institutions.

The figures were presented on Tuesday at the launch of the DEN Impact Foundation, an initiative by First Gentleman Epaphras Denga Ndaitwah to address the growing challenges facing boys and young men.

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah attended the launch after returning from South Africa, where she took part in the SADC summit.

Research presented by Faustina Neshila from the University of Namibia showed that, over about 12 years, boys have consistently recorded weaker educational outcomes than girls. Female learners had an average promotion rate of 78.4%, compared with 75.1% for males.

Boys also recorded a higher repetition rate of 18.5%, compared with 14.7% for girls, while the school-leaving rate stood at 6.3% for boys and 4.9% for girls.

“In short, for about 12 years, more girls than boys have been promoted from grade to grade, more boys than girls have repeated grades, and more boys than girls have left school early,” Neshila said.

She said the problem was also reflected in tertiary education, where women have outnumbered men for more than three decades.

From 1992 to 2023, more than 60% of students enrolled at the University of Namibia were women. At the Namibia College of Open Learning, the gender imbalance was even greater, with male enrolment at only 10% compared with 90% for females. Neshila said the pattern was not limited to Unam but was evident across public and private tertiary institutions.

“For more than three decades, the female students have consistently, for more than 30 years, academically performed substantially better than the male students in all tertiary education institutions,” she said.

The first gentleman reinforced the findings with 2026 graduation figures from the institutions of higher learning.

He said women accounted for 64.6% of this year’s Unam graduates, compared with 35.4% men.

At the Namibia University of Science and Technology, women made up 59.9% of graduates against 40.1% men, while at IUM, women represented 73.3% compared with only 26.7% men. “These statistics make it now crystal clear that there is much desire to be done, because our education situation is very pathetic and deplorable,” Ndaitwah said.

He stressed, however, that addressing the boy child should not be viewed as a competition with girls.

“Driving for the plight of boys and young men must not be construed as a competition between boys and girls. Addressing the plight of the boy child must rather be considered as a balancing act of our society, which is currently very skewed,” he said.

He added that the figures should trigger a fundamental change in how Namibia addresses the needs of boys.

“As a nation, this is a reality which we can no longer ignore. Time is now that we accept that boy child needs support,” he said.

The Prime Minister, Elijah Ngurare, who was the keynote speaker, added another worrying dimension to the crisis, pointing to suicide statistics involving men.

He said the Namibian Police recorded 542 male suicides in the 2023/24 financial year, compared with 880 female deaths. By March 2026, police had recorded 122 suicides, of which 98 victims were male, 19 were female and five were minors.

“This stark disparity points to a painful truth, because behind every statistic is a human story,” Ngurare said. He described young men struggling with unemployment, economic pressure and the belief that seeking help is a sign of weakness.

He said the country must respond through targeted dialogue, mentorship and support programmes aimed at boys, without reversing the progress made in empowering girls and women.

Foundation

Ndaitwah said the foundation is an independent non-profit organisation that will design, fund, implement, monitor and report on programmes in communities.

Its four-year strategic plan, running from 2026 to 2030, focuses on agriculture, sports, education, vocational training and trade.

The foundation’s mission is to empower youth, particularly boys, promote gender balance, foster discipline and strengthen cultural identity.

Ndaitwah said the foundation would work with communities, schools, government institutions, research bodies, development partners and the private sector.

The foundation will work across all 14 regions and 121 constituencies, with the aim of ensuring boys grow into responsible fathers, leaders and citizens.

Ndaitwah said the foundation does not intend to work in isolation but to complement government efforts and build partnerships capable of reaching communities across the country. “We stand for the boy child, not in opposition to the girl child but as a partner in shared progress. A balanced nation is a stronger nation, and our boys and girls must rise together as mutually inclusive partners,” he said. -ljason@nepc.co