In 1997, the gross primary enrollment rate was 130.6 percent, and the net primary enrollment rate was 91.2 percent. According to the Ministry of Labor's child labor survey, 80 percent of working children between the ages of 6 and 18 continue to attend school while they are employed. In 1998, there were 400,325 Namibian students in primary school and 115,237 students in secondary schools. The pupil-teacher ratio in 1999 was estimated at 32:1, with about 8% of the GDP being spent on education.
In 2011 the Namibian education system accommodated approximately 600,000 learners of which 174,000 were senior secondary students and below 10,000 were pre-primary pupils. While teachers are seen as generally adequately educated they lack specialised training. Schools consistently perform below expectation; failure and dropout rates are high. Only 12% of learners proceed into tertiary education of any kind due to limited places in universities and vocational training.