Booking system works for Roads Authority

Despite showering the Roads Authority with praises for the introduction of the written Learners Licence test in Windhoek last year, some members of public have complained that they were not informed about the booking system to be able to write the test.
Hileni Fillemon, public relations officer at Roads Authority said that the system was launched early December last year and that adverts were placed in the various newspapers to inform the public about the new system.
Explaining how the booking system works, she said “The applicant needs to go to NaTIS Valley to make a booking. The applicant will then be given a date and timeslot when he or she will write the test.”
“The written learner testing procedure is conducted in a multiple choice test format. Depending on the turn out the applicant may need to book at least 3 days in advance,” Fillemon said.
When the written test was first launched in December, 35 applicants were allowed to write the test per session which has been divided into a morning and afternoon session everyday.
“Currently we test 114 applicants per day and this is an increase of about 130% from the amount of learners we used to test with the oral test. Previously, we could only accommodate 60 applicants and that also depended on the availability of examiners,” she said.
Fillemon further said that the institution has however noted that people from different towns are flocking to Windhoek to do the written test because their towns except Swakopmund and Walvis Bay have not started with the written test method as it will only be rolled out to other towns toward end of this month or beginning February.
“Because of this, we are experiencing long queues in Windhoek. We are however confident that this situation will change once the test is introduced in other towns as well,” she added.
When asked how many applicants have written the learner licence test since its introduction, she said “to date a total of over 2,065 applicants have undertaken the written learners test, since its inception early December 2011. Out of this number over 75% have passed. We are testing more than twice the number in Windhoek than we did before and this is a marked improvement.”