The Oshana region has successfully placed all its learners, except for 131 Grade 1 learners who are expected to find classrooms today.

The region has made provision for additional tent classrooms to cater for its learners who were without space.

The education director in the Oshana region, Hileni Amukana, said all Grades 8 and 10 learners have been placed.

She added that despite the placement success, there is not enough space to accommodate learners in hostels at secondary level.

Although Amukana could not ascertain the number of learners seeking hostel accommodation, her office has received a request for 146 pupils from the Andimba and Eheke secondary schools.

At Eheke, the learners seeking accommodation are those who were previously schooling at combined schools near Eheke, which do not have Grade 10 there.

“These are the two requests that I am sitting with. But the hostel officer is now in the process of getting requests from the other eight hostels in the region so that we request for permission to exceed the hostel capacity,” she explained.

Amukana gave the assurance that the region will work around the clock to ensure that the affected learners get placement, as requested.

“Those children cannot be left without hostel accommodation, otherwise they will drop out,” she stressed.

In terms of teachers, the region has sufficient teachers for its learners.

The region has only requested for teachers at entry level as well as where the curriculum has been extended, such as at Ompandakani and Omusimboti.

Amukana said teaching and learning is indeed going ahead as there are only three more teachers required at each school.

In total, the region has requested for 28 teachers.

In the meantime, many schools are operating at full capacity. But there are a few schools which are using the time-based cohort method as the number per class exceeds the teacher-learner ratio per class.

-Nuusita Ashipala is an information officer in the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in the Oshana Region.