By Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
WINDHOEK – Lack of parent participation in the education of their children has been cited as one of the reasons the Omaheke region performed poorly in the NSSC Grade 12 Ordinary Level examination results announced this week.
“As we keep saying all the time, our parent communities are not involved in guiding these learners and through their absence learners are unruly and left to their own devices,” says the region’s director of education, Pecka Semba.
Omaheke region has slightly improved from 14th place in 2013 to 12th this year.
Semba says the lack of monitoring exercises by teachers, heads of department, principals, education officers and inspectors may be another factor that affects learners’ performance.
“I am actually very surprised and shocked by these results, since I believed we were on the upward trend after scooping the Best Improved Region Trophy for 2013,” he added.
Semba also says the seriousness, commitment and dedication of learners also plays a major role in the final results
He says after completing Grade 10 almost 90 percent of learners who score 30-42 leave for better school in bigger cities and these are some of the challenges faced by the region.
“The majority of them migrate to Windhoek at the completion of their JSC phase,” he says.
Apart from that, Semba says it is also very difficult, if not impossible, to attract the best teachers for Grade 12 as many of them, even the ones known to him, opt to teach in big urban centres like Windhoek, the coast, or the north.
“A school like Mokganedi Thlabanelo Secondary School and others are receiving the weakest of weakest Grade 10 and the few that to proceed to Grade 11 and 12 have slim chances of doing really good,” says the director.
Semba says the directorate will go back to the drawing board and do a subject analysis to see which subjects fared poorly and strategies will be put in place to turn around the situation.
“We will set up an advisory services and principals [committee] to ensure proper work ethics by subject teachers,” he adds.
The director says there will be constant monitoring by Inspectors of Education and relevant people to be encouraged to take their work seriously.
According to the Grade 12 examination results released on Wednesday, 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 have 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, on Wednesday.
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.