By Matheus Hamutenya
KEETMANSHOOP – The education director of the // Kharas Region |Awebahe ||Hoeseb says the region is targeting a 50 percent pass rate in the Grade 12 National Senior Secondary Certificate (NSSC) ordinary level results.
Speaking to New Era on Friday at the principals’ meeting held at the Schützenhaus Hotel in Keetmanshoop, ||Hoeseb expressed his disappointment with the region’s performance in the Grade 10 results and said he expected a great improvement in the Grade 12 results.
“Our expectation is 50 percent. We have done all we could and the learners indicated that the examination was fine,” he said.
He further explained that the 50 percent was an overall target set for the region for both grades 10 and 12 and was hopeful that unlike the 44 percent attained in the Grade 10 results the Grade 12 results would be much better.
||Hoeseb was however quick to point out that the Grade 10 results are not all bad as the 44 percent and the region’s national ranking make them out to be, explaining that although the number of learners that met the promotional requirements to move to Grade 11 dropped by 2.4 percent the region did well in terms of the quality of grading as more learners were able to score A’s to D’s.
Commenting on the national ranking in which the region is ranked third last in the Grade 10 results, he explained that the ranking does not really reflect the performance of the region. “Does the ranking that the region get at the national level indicate the quality of the performance?” he asked.
He narrated that it’s difficult to measure the performance of a region based on the national ranking because of the differences in the numbers of learners who sit for exams in the different regions.
“Our region’s learner number compared to the region ranked first, even if we scored A’s with our 20 000 learners and another region with 100 000 learners scores A’s, do you think we will ever be ranked first?” he questioned.
The three-day meeting, aimed at looking at the region’s educational performance last year and mapping a way forward for this year, was attended by principals, inspectors, advisory teachers and education directors and ended on Friday.
The Grade 12 National Senior Secondary Certificate (NSSC) ordinary level results are due to be released on Thursday.