By Victor Angula|
Minister of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture Dr Sanet Steenkamp was the highest government official at the Oshana Region Education Indaba where stakeholders discussed some of the issues affecting educational performance in the region.
The one day event took place on 9 October, at Ongwediva, where the Governor of Oshana Mr Hofni Iipinge welcomed close to three hundred people, most of whom were school learners.
There was also a strong presence of teachers from close to 20 schools in Oshana. Three members of parliament also attended the gathering.
As the hall could not accommodate everyone, some people had to sit outside and watch the proceedings on a screen.
Oshana region has faced serious challenges in education performance, especially as the 2024 examination results released earlier this year reported the region to have the worst performance among regions, sitting at position 14.
The gathering was thus meant to discuss how the region would improve on its educational performance.
The theme of the indaba (gathering) was: “Quality and Smart Education for the Namibian Child in Oshana Region”.
In his welcoming address the Governor of Oshana Mr Hofni Iipinge said that he believes that education is a shared responsibility.
“Parents must take responsibility for the education and discipline of their children. School boards must actively support school management,” Iipinge said.
“Community leaders must help create environments conducive to learning. The private sector must recognise education as an investment in the future workforce and economic development of our region.
“Equally, our learners must understand that education is an opportunity that comes with responsibility, commitment and discipline.”
Iipinge stated that: “We cannot demand better results while continuing to do things in the same way.”
In her keynote address, Dr Sanet Steenkamp emphasised the importance of quality school leadership.
“The quality of school leadership has a significant influence on the quality of teaching and learning,” Dr Steenkamp said.
“But when we speak about leadership, I would encourage us to think beyond the principal’s office. A principal has a critical leadership responsibility, but a school cannot become an effective learning organisation through one person alone.
“Leadership must be distributed. Heads of department, senior teachers and teachers themselves have important leadership roles to play in improving teaching and learning.
“Teachers should not only be recipients of policy, instructions and professional development. They are professionals with knowledge, experience and ideas that can help shape solutions.
“This is what we mean by teacher leadership, creating space for teachers to lead professional learning, mentor colleagues, analyse learner performance, share effective practice and contribute to decisions that affect teaching and learning.”
There was also a moment for panel discussions, although due to poor time management one panel discussion as well as breakaway sessions did not take place any longer.
The breakaway sessions were supposed to identify ‘smart and innovative interventions’, and produce resolutions.
In the end no resolutions and recommendations were identified, but the organisers expressed that resolutions were going to be collected out of the discussions and ideas shared by participants during the day’s discussions.
In the photo: The Oshana Education Indaba was well attended.
