By Simon Liseli
Zambezi Education Directorate still remains on position 13 where it improved in 2021’s national examinations, trending from position 14 that dragged from 2012 to 2021 when it was a bit shifted to position 13 in 2021 and 2022.
This was announced by Zambezi Regional Director for Education, Mr. Joseph Josty Kawana when he was caught-up with this paper.
He said, 2022 performance was not that good and described it as a common knowledge but the region is not well with the results.
“Am grateful to say that we are now at least improved from position 14 to 13 because when we recall the region dropped to position 14 in 2012, and since 2012 the region had been on position 14 in terms of Secondary Education Certificate” Explained the regional director.
Improvements started in 2021 to last year when the region took position 13 and the regional management hopes for better in 2023 results.
Last year (2022) Kizito Senior Secondary School did well as it continued improving from 2021. The school had 99 learners who sat for examination and it was able to pass with quality symbols which are C and above that allows learners to go for further studies to the higher institutions of learning.
Out of 99 learners who sat for the examination at Kizito, 51 learners passed with quality symbols giving 51, 5% pass rate.
Mr. Kawana pointed out that learners who qualified to go for Advanced Subsidiary (AS) in the region are 375 giving 14%, out of 2670 who were in grade 11 in all 19 schools around the region. He said learners only qualify to go for further studies after AS.
On challenges faced by the directorate in the region Mr. Kawana said they are multiple of challenges around the directorate, like issues of overcrowding in schools.
He gave an example of Caprivi Senior Secondary School where last year it had six (6) classrooms for grade 11 learners only and each classroom could go up-to around 50 learners in a class. The director also added that issues of indiscipline are also among the challenges faced by the directorate whereby learners are much involved in pleasure.
“Some of the learners when they come to school they lose tracks as to why they are at school and also not realising the importance of education” noted the director.
He added that the ministry should also intervene in terms of provision of resources as are not enough, including lack of classrooms, no functional libraries and laboratories with insufficient subject content to teachers which he said to be a problem. “There is a need for us to capacity teachers so that they can continue deliver as expected” he added.
The director in his advice said teachers should learn from their past mistakes as they have examiner reports where they can learn and rectify some mistakes. He also called on parents to be part of learners in terms learning.
“When a parent meeting is called they must show up and give guidance, they must also beware of where are their children because I believe they used to push them to school but they are not certain on whether the children arrived to school because in many cases when a person drives in town you will see learners rendering around shops” he explained.
Mr. Kawana lamented that parents should involve themselves in learning and teaching of their children in order to change their mindset to a desired state.
On the issue where parents are concerned that the ministry downgraded some schools, the director clarified that schools were not downgraded but it’s the issue of revised curriculum whereby schools that are currently ending with grade 9 its grade 10 they had in the past and grade 10 that parents are willing to have is now grade 11 as per new curriculum design.
“It’s not true when parents say we have downgraded, it’s only the system that changed, the work that was done in grade 10 is the work currently found in grade 9 and grade 10 work now in grade 11. Even in the past not every school had grade 10, and now those having grade 10 and 11 are only 19 that mean they are still few” he explained.
According to him the idea was that as the ministry is busy with piloting the new curriculum, and learners continue passing they can still upgrade some of schools to have grade 10 and 11.
“As a region we are not raising to the challenge, how can we create more schools when we are not able to do more much better with less schools we have? The idea is that if these schools we have were able to perform or give more learners to lower schools then more secondary schools can be created” he remarked.
When asked to clarify on why only two schools in Katima circuit offer Advanced Subsidiary (AS), the director clarified that schools are not producing many learners and there are not enough human resources like teachers who can be able to teach at AS level.
“Imagine out of 2670 we only able to produce 375, why should we have more schools for AS while we have less learners qualifying for that? That tells that at one stage when will have less, we will only have one AS school in the region” he said.
The director further explained that if the region was producing more learners it could give chance to have more AS schools adding that the bottom base is that the region doesn’t have qualified teachers who can teach AS at every school.
He said five schools in Zambezi that have AS allows the directory to draw some few resources that are available to those schools to perform better.
Mr. Kawana finally urged residents of the region to stop pointing fingers rather to work as a team because education is a shared responsibility not for the regional director or regional council but for the directorate of education, schools where learners are including parents together, results can be better.
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