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Possible Solutions To Learners' Poor English Performance in Schools
Possible Solutions To Learners' Poor English Performance in Schools
Performance in Schools
accountable for the higher failure rate of our children. Teaching is a noble profession,
and should not be put into disrepute by a few lazy individuals.
I would like to call upon the government to step in and help our teachers financially, to
make ends meet. Most of our teachers are hungry and homeless; they do not have their
own houses to call home. This can be very frustrating to some of our best teachers who,
if not taken care of, can ditch the teaching profession for greener pastures elsewhere.
Imagine teaching a class of more than 40 learners, what kind of quality teaching would
take place in such learning environment? To make matters worse, some of these
teachers have to handle five classes consisting of more than 40 learners. In total a
teacher handles about 200 exercise books of the learners. With this staggering figure, it
becomes practically impossible for a teacher to give regular class tests and mark them
and give feedback on time. Better performing schools in Namibia have a relatively small
number of learners in the classroom as opposed to most public schools, particularly in
Kavango region.
If the issue of leaner-teacher ratio is not solved, then forget about quality teaching taking
place in our public schools, let alone teaching proper English.
However, despite all these challenges, teachers should be very resourceful and
inventive to solve some of these teaching related problems. In a situation where you
have a class of more than 40 or 50 learners and the activity is less than ten marks, let
learners swap their exercise books and mark their own work, rather than a teacher
keeping those books for a month.
Finally, I am confident and hopeful that our teachers in Namibia are capable enough to
teach our children very well. I am very sure our teachers and learners are going to work
hard this year! The whole education sector should stand tall; let us do it for our late
education Minister Dr Abraham Iyambo. For comment gersindano@gmail.com