Failure of education system in spotlight

THE Namibia National Teachers’ Union (Nantu) yesterday laid the blame for perennially poor school results on undisciplined pupils and insufficient support from the Ministry of Education.

Nantu’s acting Secretary General, Basilius Haingura, said the chronically low pass rate was because teachers were overworked while many new teachers struggled to interpret the curricula and syllabi. He said Nantu was worried about the high failure rate and the number of school leavers who roam the streets.”We are worried as to what expectations the Namibian nation has from the education system,” he said.He said Nantu believed that the Cambridge education system was good, and they failed to understand the persistent high failure rate.”We foresee that the most crippling problems in our schools are lack of discipline, motivation amongst teachers and learners, lack of commitment, improper monitoring and supportive mechanisms and insufficient teaching materials at schools,” he said.He said Nantu was concerned that while the results were poor, Government intended to renege on an earlier agreement with the union by increasing the pupil-teacher ratio.A new proposal under the 15-year strategic plan, called Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (Etsip), states that the Ministry wants to increase the number of students from 35 to 40 per teacher.There is already a shortage of 1 160 teachers and 150 heads of department in the country.”The population and the demand for schools are growing while at the same time the number of teachers is decreasing,” Haingura said.The Namibia National Students’ Organisation (Nanso) said on Tuesday that the education system was “a time bomb” ready to explode and blamed, among other things, the automatic promotion of pupils up to Grade 10.Nanso Secretary General Neville Andre said automatic promotion failed to prepare pupils for the challenges of the senior level and only “tarnishes the quality of education”.Nantu’s Erago Thaddeus Erago disagreed.He said pupils were not automatically promoted but “transferred to another grade”.”There is nothing like automatic promotion.We look at the basic competencies of learners and decide whether they meet certain criteria.If they are excellent or fair, they get promoted,” he said.Earlier, Education Permanent Secretary Vitalis Ankama appealed to the public not to call pupils who repeat grades ‘failures’ because it would dishearten them and “kill their resolve” to make an extra effort.He was responding to criticism that the high failure rate in Grades 10 and 12 was partly because of automatic promotions in some junior grades.Ankama said pupils who repeat and those promoted automatically were supposed to be given more attention and their progress monitored to avoid more failures.”The policy also states that schools should give extra classes in the afternoon (also called compensatory teaching) to learners who repeat and those who continue to be promoted,” he said.He said the 1999 Presidential Commission on Education suggested that parents be consulted before children were promoted or told to repeat their classes.”If they (parents) feel that a learner will not benefit by being promoted to the next grade, the learners can then be allowed to repeat,” he said.He said Nantu was worried about the high failure rate and the number of school leavers who roam the streets.”We are worried as to what expectations the Namibian nation has from the education system,” he said.He said Nantu believed that the Cambridge education system was good, and they failed to understand the persistent high failure rate.”We foresee that the most crippling problems in our schools are lack of discipline, motivation amongst teachers and learners, lack of commitment, improper monitoring and supportive mechanisms and insufficient teaching materials at schools,” he said.He said Nantu was concerned that while the results were poor, Government intended to renege on an earlier agreement with the union by increasing the pupil-teacher ratio.A new proposal under the 15-year strategic plan, called Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (Etsip), states that the Ministry wants to increase the number of students from 35 to 40 per teacher.There is already a shortage of 1 160 teachers and 150 heads of department in the country.”The population and the demand for schools are growing while at the same time the number of teachers is decreasing,” Haingura said.The Namibia National Students’ Organisation (Nanso) said on Tuesday that the education system was “a time bomb” ready to explode and blamed, among other things, the automatic promotion of pupils up to Grade 10.Nanso Secretary General Neville Andre said automatic promotion failed to prepare pupils for the challenges of the senior level and only “tarnishes the quality of education”.Nantu’s Erago Thaddeus Erago disagreed.He said pupils were not automatically promoted but “transferred to another grade”.”There is nothing like automatic promotion.We look at the basic competencies of learners and decide whether they meet certain criteria.If they are excellent or fair, they get promoted,” he said.Earlier, Education Permanent Secretary Vitalis Ankama appealed to the public not to call pupils who repeat grades ‘failures’ because it would dishearten them and “kill their resolve” to make an extra effort.He was responding to criticism that the high failure rate in Grades 10 and 12 was partly because of automatic promotions in some junior grades.Ankama said pupils who repeat and those promoted automatically were supposed to be given more attention and their progress monitored to avoid more failures.”The policy also states that schools should give extra classes in the afternoon (also called compensatory teaching) to learners who repeat and those who continue to be promoted,” he said.He said the 1999 Presidential Commission on Education suggested that parents be consulted before children were promoted or told to repeat their classes.”If they (parents) feel that a learner will not benefit by being promoted to the next grade, the learners can then be allowed to repeat,” he said.