GOBABIS – The Omaheke Directorate of Education has embarked on its ambitious turnaround strategy to improve recent poor performance of learners in the national examination in the region.
Speaking to New Era recently, Omaheke Regional Director of Education, Pecka Semba, said the deputy directors, education inspectors have last week visited the Epako Secondary School, and Moganedi Tlhabanelo High School outside Gobabis with the aim of determining exactly where teaching and learning goes wrong.
“Next week we are going to set up mid-year examination question papers,” he said, adding that although the turnaround strategy might take a while he is optimistic about this year’s results.
He said the visiting team included a team of talented and experienced educators who would identify schools where majority of teachers would be willing to be led and supported by these experienced educators.
Amongst some of the radical changes implemented in the region to improve the results are identical question papers for mid-year examinations for all Grades 10-12s across the region and frequent meetings between stakeholders to touch base on the progress made.
Out of 19 392 full-time candidates who sat for the Grade 12 Namibia Senior Secondary Certificate (NSSC) Ordinary Level, 8 300 qualify for admission to tertiary institutions, while 1 150 learners obtained points between 20 and 24.
According to the Grade 12 examination results released earlier this year, 2014 full-time candidates performed better, especially at grades A, B, C and G, while their performance at grades A* and D remains the same at 00 and -6 percent, respectively, as in 2013. Compared to 2013, the number of full-time candidates decreased by 109 (0.6 percent) to 19 392.
“Results of the full-time candidates show that the percentage of graded entries increased from 93 percent to 93.2 percent in 2014. This is a slightly better performance of the 2014 candidates compared to the 2013 candidates.
The candidates performed slightly poorer at grades E and F, which was expected due to the improvement of quality symbols. I have been calling on learners that I do not want poor symbols. Performance has shifted to quality symbols,” said the Minister of Education, Dr David Namwandi at the time.