For the past years, your reputed newspaper carried a number of articles of my fellow youth, comrades and indeed revolutionaries with the correct view. All these youth vigorously and consistently debated free tertiary education.

As an authority in education, I want to make a contribution on this subject matter (Free Tertiary Education in Namibia).

Free tertiary education is whereby the government takes full financial responsibility for each and every student.

In our small population of 2.2 million only around 35 000 youth are at tertiary institutions, albeit many denied this opportunity simply because they cannot pay tuition fees.

Tertiary institutions are the groomers of citizens in key disciplines, which are of great importance to the growth of our economy and the realization of the developmental state.

Tertiary education is fundamental for a modern knowledge-based economy and without masses accessing it, the bright futures of many youth in Namibia would be dimmed.

It is a vehicle for closing the economic gap and class divide. There is, however, a clear, simple and direct way to have a significant impact on this discrepancy.

It is to be solved by tertiary education becoming a citizen's right and should be available as a right in our public universities, mainly the Polytechnic of Namibia and the University of Namibia, of course for all applicants who meet admission standards. To make it so, the government should pay tuition fees for all students.

The crisis of affordability in/of tertiary education is intensifying, a factor that is denying many Namibians' enrollment at tertiary institutions.

Tuition fees are skyrocketing while real incomes have remained stagnant. We have national developmental goal "Vision 2030" by which we want to become an industrial and knowledgeable society, but for as long as our tertiary education remains free to market entities, such a realization will be a far fetched dream.

For us to become an industrial nation, we must aim at increasing annually graduates from our tertiary institutions.

These intellectuals will help develop highly finished products that can help the country to inflate its economic capacities and cap better returns in terms of profits and job creation.

The most important investment in the future of any nation is in education and as the legendary Malcolm X once told the American Black Nationalist, education is the passport to the future for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it.

This country is blessed with mineral resources, which are currently being exploited by capitalist materialist foreign multinational companies, who have no interest in investing in our educational system for whatever reason.

Funding for tertiary education will not be an issue if we as a country take ownership of our resources and ensure optimum utilization of them and then invest their returns in our tertiary education.

Namibia is the 4th largest producer of uranium in the world, but yet the uranium sector is dominated and controlled by international multinational companies.

We must take ownership of the uranium sector.

Our government must decide as to what it really wants from public entities such as Air Namibia, NWR, Transnamib, etc., which are year in and year out being bailed out by government and the buying of those black C-class Mercedes Benz's which are currently parked at the M+Z Motors Southern Industria branch awaiting distribution, this another clear indication of taxpayers' money going to waste.

Millions of dollars which could have been alternatively used to finance tertiary education greatly and foster the removal of financial constraints on access to tertiary education.

Free tertiary education will encourage indigenous inhabitants of the Namibian soil to study hard and pursue tertiary education.

We must face reality and clearly understand that there are poor people in this country who cannot afford tuition fees. Tertiary education is a faster way to develop a knowledgeable society, which will increase economic growth and enable more people to become taxpayers.

Finally, I would like to express my personal gratitude, and that of the revolutionaries with the correct view, to the companies that are really investing in our tertiary education, the likes of MTC, Petro Fund, Namdeb, Bank of Namibia, Nampower, and FNB and others I might not mention today. But most of all the recent investment by Mr Harold Pupkewitz.

The struggle continues.

Steven Shishuweny Nangoloh is a final year education student, University of Namibia.