By Dr Etuna Simon
A child sits in a classroom.
A question appears on the board.
Before the child has finished thinking, an answer can already appear on a screen.
It is fast. It sounds confident. It may even be correct.
But can the child read it properly?
Can the child question it?
Can the child recognise when it is wrong?
That is where Namibia’s conversation about artificial intelligence in education should begin.
This week, the country is marking the 2026 National Readathon, held from 21 to 25 September under the theme, “Read Namibia: Embrace Technology Within the Education Sector.” The theme could hardly be more timely. Namibia wants children to read. Namibia also wants them to participate confidently in a digital future. Those ambitions should not compete. They must reinforce each other.
Are we digitising before we have built the foundation?
Namibia is right to embrace technology. AI, digital learning platforms and online resources can widen access to information and help teachers personalise learning. But technology cannot compensate for weak foundations. Government’s 2026/27–2028/29 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework records that, in the 2024/25 actual performance period, only 28% of Grade 3 learners achieved basic literacy skills and only 32% achieved basic numeracy skills. Those numbers should make us uncomfortable. They are not simply Grade 3 statistics.
They tell us something about the learning journey that follows. A learner who struggles to read in the early grades may later struggle to interpret a science question, understand instructions, evaluate an argument or make sense of a complex problem. Learning gaps do not disappear because a learner moves to the next grade.
Now add AI to that picture.
AI can provide answers. But can learners question them? A learner can ask an AI tool to summarise a chapter, solve a problem, draft an essay or explain a difficult concept. Within seconds, something appears. That convenience is impressive. But receiving an answer is not the same as learning. If comprehension is weak, how will a learner judge whether the answer makes sense? If vocabulary is limited, how will that learner identify misleading language? If critical reading is weak, how will the learner recognise when an AI system produces something that sounds convincing but is inaccurate?
This is why Namibia’s AI conversation cannot focus only on access.
The deeper question is readiness. We could give every learner access to powerful technology and still fail educationally if learners have not developed the ability to read, reason and question what the technology produces. The risk is not only plagiarism. It is dependence. We may raise a generation that becomes good at asking machines for answers but less confident in constructing answers for themselves. That would not be digital transformation. It would be digital dependency. Technology should strengthen literacy, not bypass it.
The answer is not to keep technology away from children. The better approach is to use it to strengthen the foundations they already need. Digital platforms can help learners practise reading at the right level. Audio tools can support pronunciation.
Digital books can reach children where physical resources are limited. Teachers can use digital assessment tools to identify learning gaps earlier. AI can also help generate differentiated learning activities where learners progress at different speeds.
But the sequence matters.
Technology should support the teacher and the learner. It should not quietly replace the intellectual work that learning requires. At the 2026 National Readathon pre-launch, held at M.H. Greeff Primary School in Windhoek on 15 September 2026, Sarah Negumbo, Director of the Namibia Library and Archives Service, captured this balance clearly when she said: “Technology complements, rather than replaces, the value of reading.”
That is a principle worth carrying into Namibia’s AI era.
The teacher still matters
One of the easiest mistakes in conversations about educational technology is to become fascinated by the tool and forget the person using it.
The teacher remains central.
A strong teacher knows when a learner is guessing. A teacher can hear uncertainty in a child’s voice. A teacher can ask another question when the first answer sounds memorised.
A teacher can connect a story to a learner’s language and lived experience. Technology can assist. It cannot fully reproduce that human judgement. That means investment in digital education must be matched by investment in teachers.
Teachers need training in responsible AI use. They need guidance on assessment. They need access to appropriate digital resources. They also need continued support in teaching foundational literacy and numeracy effectively. We cannot place new technology into old systems and assume transformation has happened.
Reading is infrastructure for the digital age
UNICEF’s 2025 Foundational Learning Action Tracker shows both progress and unfinished work in Namibia. Early Grade Reading and Mathematics assessment tools have been developed in 12 local languages. Yet the same country scorecard records an early-grade textbook-to-student ratio of roughly one textbook for every three to five learners.
That contrast matters.
A national conversation about AI taking place alongside shortages of basic learning materials should force us to think carefully about priorities. This is not an argument for choosing books instead of technology. It is an argument for getting the foundation right while introducing technology intelligently. Reading is not an old skill that becomes less important because AI exists.
It becomes more important.
The more information a machine can generate, the more human beings need the ability to evaluate it. The more convincing synthetic text becomes, the more important comprehension becomes. The more automated answers become, the more valuable independent judgement becomes.
What kind of digital citizen are we trying to produce?
Namibia’s education system should not aim merely to produce young people who know how to use digital tools. It should produce young people who can think with them and, when necessary, think against them. That requires literacy. It requires curiosity. It requires the confidence to ask a simple but powerful question:
How do I know this is true?
These are educational questions before they are technological ones. This is why Readathon Week should be more than a celebration of books. A child who reads well can learn independently.
That child can search for information, compare sources, understand instructions and enter new fields of knowledge. Later, that same child can use AI as a tool rather than as a substitute for thinking. The real digital divide may therefore become more than a divide between those who have devices and those who do not.
It may become a divide between those who can critically interrogate technology and those who simply accept what it gives them.
Namibia should embrace AI.
Our learners should know how to use it. Our teachers should know how to teach with it. Our institutions should prepare for it. We should not confuse access to intelligent machines with the development of intelligent citizens. A country can put technology in every classroom and still fail to educate if learners are not able to read deeply, reason independently and question what they are given. That is why Namibia’s AI future must begin with more than devices, platforms and connectivity.
It must begin with the mind.
A child opens a page.
Reads it.
Understands it.
Questions it.
Connects it to another idea.
And forms an independent thought.
That may sound simple. But it is the foundation of everything that follows. AI can assist a learner. It can explain, summarise and generate. But it should never become a substitute for curiosity, judgement or intellectual effort.
The real measure of Namibia’s success in the age of AI will therefore not be how quickly our children learn to prompt machines.
It will be whether they can challenge the answers those machines produce. Whether they can recognise what is true, what is doubtful and what deserves another question.
Whether they can use technology without surrendering their own ability to think. That is the kind of digital citizen Namibia should be preparing. Before we teach our children to rely on intelligent machines, we must first give them the literacy, confidence and critical thinking skills to remain intellectually independent. Because the future does not only need children who know how to use AI. It needs children who know when not to believe it.
Dr Etuna Simon is a researcher, strategist and writer with a keen interest in education, innovation, artificial intelligence and national development. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author. She can be reached at etunasimon@icloud.com
