Not enough learners go to Grade 11 – Youth League

The SPYL has analysed the 2012 Grade 10 (JSC) results released by the Ministry of Education on 20 December 2012.  While there is a slight improvement in the number of learners who qualified for admission into grade 11, there is still a large number of youth being offloaded on the streets by the system for failing to qualify for grade 11.
The Ministry of Education has made it clear that learners who failed to garner enough points to qualify for grade 11 ought to be given an opportunity to repeat grade 10 at their schools.  One of the conditions given is that a learner must be 17 years old or younger, provided that there is still enrolment space for grade 10 at these schools.
The SPYL is flabbergasted that there are numerous schools that are not allowing learners who failed grade 10 to repeat as per directive of the Ministry.  To this end, we call on the Education Circuits to take hands on approach to ensure compliance of the implementation of this ministerial directive in all their schools.
 This genuine intervention measure by the ministry must be applauded as the statistics released indicated more than 60 % pass rate among the Grade 10 repeaters in the past JSC examinations.
The just released results clearly indicated that the urge and full ownership of the learners’ performance can help attain desirable results.
The top best performing regions are Oshikoto, Omusati, Oshana, Erongo and Ohangwena in that order.
We applaud teachers, education leaders and learners in these regions for their effective regional strategies that at times required lots of personal sacrifice.
Our analysis delivered contributing factors as daily afternoon fully supervised study sessions, holiday classes, effective teaching strategies workshops, camping visits by advisory services at schools of concern, fact finding visits to best performing regions, mentorship to school management by the region and examination study camps supervised by teachers and parents.
SPYL observed some major challenges and  recommends some possible interventions. In the case of shebeens freely selling alcohol to under aged individuals (learners), they must be brought to book.
– Rapid growth and long operating hours of the liquor outlets.  Government should initiate intervention to challenge the mushrooming of liquor outlets.
– Poor school management of academic performance; regional education office to attach mentors who can equip the school managers with academic performance management skills.
We also believe that the learners themselves should take full ownership of their individual academic performance in all the school subjects.
Issued by:
Menthel Links, SYL Secretary for Education, Sports and Culture ([email protected])
(Statement shortened – Ed.)