Elizabeth Hiyolwa
NKURENKURU – The Kavango West directorate of education, arts and culture, in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the Rundu Vocational Training Centre and the Student Career Fair Association, started the regional school career guidance tour earlier this week.
The tour aims to supplement integral teaching
and learning in the ministry as its part of the curriculum from Grade Four for learners to be sensitised on the area of their interest to help make correct choices when they reach Grade Nine.
This tour specifically targets the exit grades, 11 and 12, to motivate learners and provide career coaching on what they would want to pursue at tertiary level. Presenters had the opportunity to enlighten learners on the different courses offered at different institutions, as well as the requirements and possible financial assistance.
Acting director Sophia Ferdrieck said the region chose to do a a tour instead of a one-day fair to ensure the team reaches as many learners as possible.
“Our region is vast, and we don’t have accommodation facilities. The hostels that we are supposed to use are fully occupied,” she explained.
“So, we felt that should we have a group to reach out to these children at their schools, we will be able to access and support many learners, instead of having only some representatives.”
Ferdrieck said the programme is faced with some challenges, such as financial constraints and transport. It thus prevents the directorate from bringing more stakeholders on board, and also limits the number of leaerners who are part of SCAFA.
The trainer in plumbing and pipe-fitting at the RVTC, Raphael Haingura, said they have joined hands with other stakeholders to guide students to take up technical and vocational educational training courses.
“We want Namibia to become an industrialed country, especially in food security, and to reduce unemployment among the youth by empowering young people with skills to create employment,” he noted.
Raphael Sivhute, a Likeskills teacher at the Simanya Combined School, said the programme should become a yearly activity because it’s an opportunity to share information, to motivate learners, and to expose learners to different career choices as well as for them to realise what careers society needs to progress. Meanwhile, a learner at the Nkurenkuru Combined School who wants to become a surgeon
one day, Anna Mukonda, said the programme provided information which they did not have access to before.
The team will visit different schools in the region, and the tour will end on 19 August.