KEETMANSHOOP – The Ministry of Education is planning a comprehensive investigation of schools that have registered a below average pass rate for more than three years. Speaking to the New Era yesterday, Minister of Education, Dr David Namwandi, said it is unfortunate that the //Karas Region pass rate for Grade 10 has lingered between 41 and 47.5 percent for the last six years.
“We are definitely going to work out strategies to address this as we cannot allow schools to fail Namibia. But we will have to be careful, we have to investigate what causes these poor performances. We must see if the environment is good for teachers to teach children. If we discover someone is contributing to the failure of students we will take action. We do not want to punish an innocent person, that is why we will investigate to see where the problem lies. We do not want to treat the symptom but the disease,” argued Namwandi.
The //Karas Region is ranked 11th out of the 14 regions and achieved a 46.4 percent pass rate in the 2013 Grade 10 national examinations for the Junior Secondary Certificate (JSC). Over the last six years the regional pass rate has fluctuated between 41 percent and 46.9 percent without ever crossing the 50 percent mark that the region has set itself as a target.
Namwandi also condemned the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in state schools. “They must not play with us; English is the medium of instruction for any grade. No switching over! We will investigate teachers and schools that are making themselves guilty of this behaviour,” he said.
Meanwhile, whilst addressing principals and teachers at the Principals Meeting in Keetmanshoop yesterday, the //Karas Region Governor Bernadus Swartbooi said it is “disturbingly disheartening” that the region is performing below its minimum performance target of 50 percent promotion of all learners in all the grades.
Swartbooi further argued that the the quality of educational service delivery and the quality of teaching and learning at most of the primary schools in the region leaves much to be desired. He said it is one of the causes for poor performances in Grade 10 and Grade 12.
“It is no surprise that many learners do not perform that well in grades 10 and 12 since a sound foundation is not laid at some primary schools in this region and learners who do not muster the requisite competencies at primary level end up in secondary schools,” he said.
He also questioned the allocation of continuous assessment marks compared to the actual performance of students, which depicts a disturbing picture of discrepancies, which he said is a true illustration of laziness on the part of school principals.
By Jemima Beukes