Outapi
The Omusati Regional Education Directorate together with its stakeholders yesterday strategised on how best to improve the Grade 12 results this year following a high failure rate in 2015.
For the previous two years the Omusati Region was ranked at position eight, however it dropped three places in 2015.
“The Grade 12s did not do well as per our expectations and we need to come up with serious interventions to improve the results,” said the Director of Education in Omusati Region Laban Shapange. Apart from the meeting yesterday, education officials met earlier at the start of the academic year to interrogate themselves on what went wrong last year.
“We are really worried and it is really a pity especially for our learners who obtained 39 points but have scored a U symbol in English. We are really working on how best we can improve results,” said Shapange.
Shapange was content with the Grade 10 results for the region as it retained its third position.
Shapange said while failure is seen as a learner-school issue social factors also have a negative impact. He said Grade 11 in which learners are prepared for Grade 12 is often deemed to be a relaxing grade. In addition, the director said that in most instances the Grade 11 learners are usually left hanging about without teaching once the Grade 10 and 12 examinations commence.
According to Shapange during examinations Grade 11 learners are in most cases not fully attended to because their teachers are either invigilating or marking.
“Those are just some of the many factors that can negatively hamper results,” said Shapange.
Shapange said that the meetings with stakeholders is aimed at bringing about recommendations on how best all stakeholders can influence the results.
“We want everybody involved. We need to see how the church, traditional leaders and councillors, among others, can influence the learners and the community at large in the quest to yield positive results,” he said.