The COVID-19 pandemic, education disruptions, ill-discipline, and lack of parental involvement all contributed to the poor results obtained by learners who sat for the Senior Secondary Certificate Ordinary and Advanced Subsidiary level exams in the ||Kharas Region. 

This was the view of Regional Education Director Johannes ||Hoeseb in an interview with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation.

Only 208 of the over 700 students who took the exams met the NSSCAS level admission requirement.

"We did the analysis of the results for possible reasons for poor performances at NSSCO and AS levels. We look at the Grade 9 competency of the learners, it's the first one, we said that the learners had a learning gap, which was triggered by COVID-19; we had interruptions and discontinuation of face-to-face teaching and learning; there was a time that schools were closed down during the lockdown; so these learners came with a backlog up to NSSCO level, and some of them proceeded to AS level, but we are now focusing on NSSCO level. The fact that the Grade 9 learners of 2020 did not master the required basic competencies because of these interruptions in the teaching and learning really did not give them a sound foundation in order to perform well in the much higher grades."

||Hoeseb points out that a lack of training for teachers on the revised NSSCO and NSSCAS syllabi, as well as low work ethics and absenteeism among teachers, were other factors cited as having contributed to the poor general results.

"We introduced revised syllabi, we provided training to the teachers, in-service training, but this training that was provided by NIED was only for a selected group of teachers, who had to then cascade that at a lower level, and we don't always have time and funds to train all the teachers, so some of the teachers lack the skills to provide learning support to the learners, and we have some challenges with regard to the work ethics of some teachers and some school managers."

||Hoeseb says stakeholders would be invited to attend a meeting where principals would deliberate on the poor examination results.

Moreover, teachers will receive refresher courses on NSSCO and NSSCA level syllabi.

According to ||Hoeseb, NSSCO-level learners under the age of eighteen who did not meet the NSSCA requirement can repeat Grade 11 on a full-time basis.