OPUWO: The Kunene Education Directorate plans to conduct teachers’ conferences to address the region’s poor performance in the 2023 Namibia Senior Secondary Certificate Ordinary (NSSCO) and Advanced Subsidiary (NSSCAS) level examinations.
This was said by the region’s interim education director, Petrus Shipalanga, in an interview with Nampa on Wednesday, as part of a discussion on Kunene’s poor academic performance.
Despite a gradual increase in 2023 outcomes when compared to 2022, the Kunene Region still underperformed and remained in 14th place in the national NSSCO rankings.
In the 2022 academic year, 11.3 per cent of the learners who wrote the NSSCO examinations qualified for the AS level, while in 2023, 15.95 per cent of the learners qualified for the NSSCAS level.
Shipalanga told this news agency the Programmes and Quality Assurance Division of the regional education directorate is developing measures to boost academic performance.
‘One of the important tactics that will be implemented is teacher c
onferences. The PQA Division will hold teacher conferences in crucial towns and villages like Khorixas, Outjo, Kamanjab, Opuwo, Okanguati, and Sesfontein,’ he stated.
According to Shipalanga, the primary purpose of the conferences is to involve all teachers and discuss issues affecting teaching and learning. It will also provide an opportunity for continuous professional development on the effective implementation of National Standards and Performance Indicators in terms of quality lesson planning, teaching, learning, and assessment, as well as motivating teachers to boost the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of learners.
The first teachers’ conference will be held in Khorixas on Friday, 19 January 2024, at Eddie Bowe Primary School, with the remainder of the conferences taking place next week.
Shipalanga said some of the factors contributing to poor performance include teacher absenteeism, a lack of motivation among learners, a lack of parental involvement, drug and alcohol abuse among students, and a l
ack of technology integration, all of which will be addressed at the conferences.
Source: The Namibia Press Agency
Department of Basic Education Director-General (DG) Hubert Mweli has attributed the achievements of the matric Class of 2023 to the ‘extraordinary support’ the learners received throughout the year.
The DG was speaking during a technical briefing ahead of the announcement of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) results held at the Mosaïek in Johannesburg on Thursday.
The Class of 2023, with more than 890 000 full-time and part-time candidates, produced a pass rate of some 82.9% – the highest in percentage points in the history of the NSC.
‘This class has been provided with extraordinary support. The reality is that we are an unequal society. We still remain an unequal society. When others have got a number of tutors lined up for them, learners in the villages, in the townships, in the informal settlements…the only expert they rely on is the teacher.
‘In South Africa, our government – across all the nine provinces – provides comprehensive support to our learners. This support does not begin in Grade 12,
it starts from the foundation phase.’
Mweli explained that the Learner Support Programmes for the matriculants this year had distinct features. These included:
A strong partnership with civil society, universities and non-governmental organisations and donors.
Weekend, autumn, winter, spring, and last push learner support programme to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in all nine provinces.
The Learner Support Programme focused on Languages (Home Languages, African Languages, South African Sign Language including Afrikaans and English, as well as First Additional Languages).
The Electrical, Mechanical, Civil Technologies specialisations received attention during the implementation of the Learner Support Programme.
Smaller subjects such as services subjects (Hospitality, Consumer Studies, and Tourism) were also included in the 2023 Learner Support Programme.
Mathematics received unprecedented attention in all the 75 education districts. The year 2023 was declared the year of Mathematics and regular meetin
gs were convened with the Mathematics Curriculum convenors in each of the provinces.
Face to face engagements were held with the 25 000 school principals, district, provincial officials focusing on the improvement of learning outcome.
‘We even followed through in our support. We actioned research, we checked the impact, we tracked learner performance on a monthly basis and on a quarterly basis to determine whether there is any impact in terms of the support that has been provided,’ he said.
Source: South African Government News Agency