In an emphatic call to action, Zambezi Regional Education Director Jost Kawana is advocating for heightened parental involvement in their children's education.
Stressing its importance, he urges parents to engage actively from the outset of the academic year in January, right through to the conclusion of end-of-year examinations. Kawana emphasises the crucial role of parents, equating their responsibilities with those of teachers and education officials, and encourages them not to set any limitations on their involvement.
The Regional Education Director for Zambezi says it serves no use for parents and other stakeholders to criticise teachers and learners whenever the year's final examination results are announced.
Such criticism that comes after the fact, he says, serves no purpose and will not make a difference in those children's educational performance.
"Because it will not help as a region that we only come to talk when results are out, and somewhere around March or April we fall back and we don't think about any way we are going to help the region perform. I want to invite stakeholders to be involved in terms of education throughout the year. Go to school, find out how your children are doing, knock at my door, and knock on the door of the Deputy Director to ensure that what we promised that we were going to do throughout the year is kept abreast."
Kawana is not happy with the level of quality symbols, from A to C, achieved by learners in the region from grades one to ten.
36% of the region's learners received marks within that perimeter, compared to the set target of 65%.
While noting reservations about too much celebrating, the Education Director applauded the region's improvement from tenth to eighth nationally.
He congratulated those teachers whose learners showed improved performance and encouraged those who achieved less positive results to do better in 2024.
He urged education inspectors to analyse the results of all schools in the region and identify poor-performing schools and teachers in order to arrange engagements with them that can bring about tangible improvement.
Kizito College maintained its first position in the NSSCO and NSSCAS regional rankings, followed by Mayuni Secondary School, Sachona Secondary School in third place, Sangwali Secondary School in fourth, and Caprivi Secondary School, earmarked by the regional leadership as a school of excellence, in position five.
"Some schools were returing their positions, some schools were going down, and this is what I want to discourage as regional director. We would call for consistency; there is no reason why the school that performed number one this year should go to number four or number five. What it entails is that there could have been a compromise or an issue that it is taking for granted that the issue that we are number one is going to be number one again."
At the bottom of the regional ranking are Nsundano Technical School at 4%, Mavuluma Secondary School at 7.8%, Lusese at 8%, and Shuckmansburg at 9%.