Oranjemund Private School and Suiderlig Secondary School received the award for top primary and secondary schools respectively, at the ||Kharas Region Science Fair.

The science fair started at Keetmanshoop on Wednesday and ended on Friday. The two schools each walked away with a data projector donated by the Anglo Foundation and the Debmarine-Namdeb Foundation.

From the 77 projects presented at the fair, Vilho Ashipala from Suiderlig Secondary School was the overall winner of the science fair and walked away with a laptop, after showcasing an electronic passport to be used by health facilities for effective and efficient service delivery.

Ashipala in an interview with Nampa said: ‘I did this because the health passports currently in use are prone to getting lost and when a patient does present a passport doctors cannot render effective services because of the lack of background of the patient. With this device, all the patient information is kept electronically and when visiting a health facility, the pati
ent’s information will be available at a press of a button.’

The device has features to protect each individual’s information and can only be accessed by a secret password that is kept safe by the patient.

Ashipala was also the overall winner for the senior secondary category.

Joseph Markowitz from Oranjemund Private School took the Junior Primary overall winner award. At the same time, Albertina Shaanika from Ambrorius Hamutenya Primary School and Joy Linane from Oranjemund Private School shared the senior primary overall winner award, and Aiyana Abed from P. K. De Villiers scooped best overall winner for junior secondary.

Speaking to Nampa, the science fair chief judge, Connie Willemse said that science has improved over the years adding that there were fewer but quality projects entered this year.

‘This year our learners came much more prepared; we had fantastic topic choices and the investigations were on another level. There was an improvement in innovation and models that can be used in the industr
y when refined that’s how good they were. Artificial intelligence is on the horizon and we want to encourage that, we are very serious with stem education in our region and reinforcing the 21st-century skills with our learners and this is the best platform,’ she said.

Meanwhile, 12 learners were chosen to represent the region at the national science fair taking place in September in Windhoek.

Source: The Namibia News Agency