Five years after the rollout of the Advanced Subsidiary (AS) curriculum, countrywide performance remains below its 2021 peak, with the education ministry confirming the curriculum will undergo a review in line with its established cycle.
This comes as the percentage of Namibia Senior Secondary Advanced Subsidiary candidates graded in at least three subjects stood at 70.30% in 2025, below the 76.00% recorded in 2021.
Figures show performance at 62.26% in 2022, followed by 70.32% in 2023 and 74.09% in 2024, before declining again in 2025.
Ministry of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sport, Arts and Culture executive director Erastus Haitengela told The Namibian on Friday that the ministry will review the curriculum as part of the established review cycle.
Haitengela said the performance data plays a central role in shaping any revisions.
He said these outcomes are informed by ongoing monitoring processes, including monitoring and support visits conducted by officials from the National Institute for Educational Development to selected schools in regions, as well as regional education school evaluations carried out by regional offices.
He said the ministry also uses analysis of data from the national examination results and training needs assessment conducted in selected subjects, which inform the continuous professional development interventions.
‘STRUCTURAL CHALLENGES’
Haitengela said findings from these processes point to several challenges, including a shortage of textbooks, resulting in a lack of pupil one-to-one textbook ratio, a challenge also observed in other school phases.
“There is the need for ongoing teacher support, as some educators are still developing mastery of the required content level.”
Haitengela said a steady increase in the number of pupils qualifying for AS Level has created pressure on infrastructure, particularly the need for additional classrooms and science laboratories.
He said the curriculum is not the only factor that determines pupil performance. Others include the strength of foundation learning, teacher expertise and instructional quality and parental involvement, he added.
‘NOT READY’
Johannes Johannes, a Grade 11 and 12 teacher at Mweshipandeka Secondary School in the Oshana region, says many of the teachers were not ready to teach the syllabus.
He says challenges include teaching content that teachers needed to be trained on.
“This includes being too crowded and covering a lot of work in a single year with less teaching time,” he says.
Johannes cites issues like the unavailability of resources.
He says the education ministry continuously told parents that resources are sent to school.
“But in reality, what is sent is not enough to cater for every child,” he says.
‘TOO MUCH CONTENT’
Independent Patriots for Change shadow minister of education Bertha Nghifikwa says the government overlooked the financial burden on parents and guardians who solely buy learning resources, as well as the involvement of teachers on the ground who understand the needs and gaps that need to be filled.
She says the syllabus volume was not paired to the actual number of teaching hours as indicated in the school teaching calendar. “For example, the math content is too much to be completed in one year,” she says.
Namibia National Students Organisation president Dorthea Nangolo says many schools do not have enough materials, especially for science subjects.
“Without these essentials, it’s impossible to adequately improve the curriculum,” she says.
Students’ Union of Namibia board chairperson Benhard Kavau argues that “until deliberate policy intervention ensures a manageable teacher-pupil ratio is ideally capped at 1:30, both theoretical instruction and practical application will remain compromised, leaving pupils underserved and educators overstretched.”
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