The Director of Education in the Kavango West Region, Pontianus Musore, is pleased with the national rank standing of the region at NSSCO Level.
In 2022, Kavango West was in position seven but improved to number five in 2023, which Musore described as a remarkable improvement.
He says that despite the challenges faced at schools in terms of insufficient teaching and learning materials, he appreciates the efforts from the teachers.
"We appreciate our teachers who have worked very hard. I believe you have seen us last year, how we worked from one school to the next, and how the teachers put in their efforts to ensure that they improved the results. We can see that in most of our schools, the results improved compared to the previous year, so as a region, we are excited that we achieved this, but the tough work lies ahead to maintain the position. It's not easy, but we know that with the team that we have at the directorate and in our schools at the circuit offices, we will do what we can to assist the children that are under our care."
Despite the excitement, Musore says there is still room for improvement.
"Starting with AS, we want to eliminate the grades E and ungraded. We don't want learners to be getting E, and we want all of them to get quality symbols, that is, what we want to focus on. And how do we intend to do that? We have a programme that we started last year. We call it performance dialogue, whereby we get into the schools, engage our teachers, and come into one room. We talk about our performance and how learners performed in each subject. Together, we craft an action plan that will be followed by the schools and also by ourselves as the directorate, and that may assist us in doing better."
Following the preliminary analysis done on the regional level, ELCIN Nkurenkuru tops the list of ordinary-level schools with 94.9%, followed by Levi Hakusembe Secondary School at 79% and Kandjimi Murangi at 64%.
The lowest result was 33%.
In the Kavango West Region, only four schools offer advanced subsidiary levels, where ELCIN Nkurenkuru High School still took first place, followed by Levi Hakusembe and Kandjimi Murangi in second and third place, followed by Himarwa Ithete.
On the national ranking at AS level, Kavango West took the number one position, compared to third in 2022.
Musore says that following the preliminary analysis, the directorate is clear on which schools to focus on for improvement in the region's performance at the national level.