Nantu pushes for education revamp

ABOUT 40 000 children end up on the streets each year, while Government “fantasises” about a foreign education system that has failed the nation, the Namibia National Teachers’ Union (Nantu) charged yesterday.

Addressing a media briefing in Windhoek, Nantu Secretary General Basilius Haingura said the mere “localisation” of the education system was not enough if the country wanted to live up to the ideals of Vision 2030. He said the picture was gloomy for Grade 12 – where around 25 000 pupils get dumped by the system – and Grade 10, which accounts for another 15 000 dropouts.”In a nutshell, one can conclude that the current education system produces approximately 40 000 dropouts annually,” he said.The candidates are offered alternative education through distance education centres to upgrade their symbols but hardly manage to do that.”Nantu has evidence that only a small portion of these candidates successfully fulfil these requirements.The situation is escalated by economic hardships and lack of professional care and guidance to upgrade their symbols,” he said.Nantu blames poor planning for this situation.”Namibia has its needs and it is high time that the education planners start addressing these needs and stop fantasising about the successes of foreign systems,” Haingura said.He said Nantu would only be happy when there was a 100 per cent pass rate.However, the pass marks had to be high enough to qualify for university entrance.”A region can gain 100 per cent grading and perform best, but how many learners are eligible to go to the university from that region?” he asked.He said a region like Oshikoto seemed like the best performer in the country but a closer analysis revealed that the quality of exam results was “inferior”.He said resources were not equally distributed and compromised the quality of education.”We have evidence of learners who are graded in all subjects, yet they cannot enter a tertiary institution due to the limited points they obtained,” he said.He said the number of annual dropouts was “unacceptable”.”Although the results improve annually, there are still a huge number of learners who are leaving the school and become unskilled workers,” he said.Last year alone, 27 669 candidates wrote Grade 12 IGCSE exams and only 3 393 qualified for admission to the University of Namibia and the Polytechnic.””Our concern is where the remaining 24 276 will be dumped by the system.This pattern is repetitive and the figure increasingly adds up,” Haingura said.He said teachers were doing their best under trying circumstances.”Teachers had to improvise study material and act as a resource for the learners, thus making discovery learning impossible,” he said.He said the picture was gloomy for Grade 12 – where around 25 000 pupils get dumped by the system – and Grade 10, which accounts for another 15 000 dropouts.”In a nutshell, one can conclude that the current education system produces approximately 40 000 dropouts annually,” he said.The candidates are offered alternative education through distance education centres to upgrade their symbols but hardly manage to do that. “Nantu has evidence that only a small portion of these candidates successfully fulfil these requirements.The situation is escalated by economic hardships and lack of professional care and guidance to upgrade their symbols,” he said.Nantu blames poor planning for this situation.”Namibia has its needs and it is high time that the education planners start addressing these needs and stop fantasising about the successes of foreign systems,” Haingura said.He said Nantu would only be happy when there was a 100 per cent pass rate.However, the pass marks had to be high enough to qualify for university entrance.”A region can gain 100 per cent grading and perform best, but how many learners are eligible to go to the university from that region?” he asked.He said a region like Oshikoto seemed like the best performer in the country but a closer analysis revealed that the quality of exam results was “inferior”.He said resources were not equally distributed and compromised the quality of education.”We have evidence of learners who are graded in all subjects, yet they cannot enter a tertiary institution due to the limited points they obtained,” he said.He said the number of annual dropouts was “unacceptable”.”Although the results improve annually, there are still a huge number of learners who are leaving the school and become unskilled workers,” he said.Last year alone, 27 669 candidates wrote Grade 12 IGCSE exams and only 3 393 qualified for admission to the University of Namibia and the Polytechnic.””Our concern is where the remaining 24 276 will be dumped by the system.This pattern is repetitive and the figure increasingly adds up,” Haingura said.He said teachers were doing their best under trying circumstances.”Teachers had to improvise study material and act as a resource for the learners, thus making discovery learning impossible,” he said.