The Education Director for the ||Kharas Region, Jesmine Magerman, has expressed disappointment over the region's worsening performance in the 2024 Grade 11 and AS level exams. 

The region slipped from third place to number 12 in the Grade 11 national ranking list. 

It dropped two places on the AS level ranking list, from the 12th to the 14th place. 

The ||Kharas Education Director, speaking to nbc News, suggested the region needs honest introspection around its worsening educational performance. 

"Apart from the disappointing results that came out, we need to find out what the reasons were. Because it was devastating in the sense that the same teachers who taught the learners in 2023 in Grade 11 and AS Level obtained these results in 2024. For me, it is the same teachers. It is not that we have appointed many new teachers or teachers overall for Grade 11 and AS Level."

Magerman said her office has begun evaluating the results, with preliminary findings indicating factors that include teachers' failure to complete subject syllabi. That, in turn, she says, is due in part to absenteeism. 

"When I spoke to some of the learners, who enquired about their results, they indicated to us that one of the things was that teachers did not complete syllabuses. Now if the subject syllabus has not been completed, but learners are assessed on topics or areas within the topic, of course, they would not have been able to answer questions during the examinations. However, there are other reasons I believe have also contributed to the poor results."

Magerman says the results will again be analysed during the annual principals gathering, scheduled for the end of January at Lüderitz.

The region's pass rates for language subjects, including Afrikaans and Khoekhoegowab, also saw a considerable drop. 

This, said Magerman, could be attributed to a lack of qualified teachers for these subjects. 

Similarly, both Mathematics and Biology recorded poor results.