Technical and vocational education in colonial Namibia was intricately linked with the growing need for labour in the colonial economy, especially the mining sector. The colonial administration, through the provision of technical education to indigenous Namibians, intended to train able yet docile hands who would provide cheap, unskilled labour to the colonial economy. The inherent flaw in the confinement of the majority of the population to the unskilled labour category unravelled in the 1970s and the 1980s, with internal and external events contributing to an increasing shortage of skilled and semi-skilled labour. The mining industry, in putting forth training initiatives to curb these labour shortages, did not, however, fundamentally deviate from the educational policy set out by the colonial administration. The mines insisted that the solution to the labour shortages was the provision of education to the indigenous population and ‘in most cases, practical rather than academic’ education, a continuation of, rather than a significant break from, prior education policies. Technical and vocational education was thus emphasised by both the colonial administration and the industry to subjugate indigenous labour to its place in the colonial economy.

纳米比亚殖民地的技术和职业教育与殖民经济特别是采矿部门对劳动力日益增长的需求有着千丝万缕的联系。殖民地行政当局通过向土著纳米比亚人提供技术教育，旨在训练有能力又温顺的手，为殖民地经济提供廉价，非熟练的劳动力。1970年代和1980年代揭露了将大多数人口限制在非熟练劳动力类别中的固有缺陷，内部和外部事件导致熟练和半熟练劳动力的日益短缺。但是，采矿业在提出培训计划以遏制这些劳动力短缺的过程中，并未从根本上偏离殖民地政府制定的教育政策。这些矿山坚持认为，解决劳动力短缺的办法是向土著居民提供教育，并“在大多数情况下，是实践教育而不是学术教育”，这是对先前教育政策的延续而不是重大的突破。因此，殖民地行政当局和工业界都强调了技术和职业教育，以使土著劳动在殖民地经济中处于地位。