The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Youth and Students Command Element secretary, Duminga Ndala said the Grade 11 results are disastrous and show poverty inequality between government and private schools.

Ndala said this in an interview with Nampa on Friday, while sharing her thoughts on the 2021 national examination results for Grade 11 ordinary level, as announced by Minister of Education, Arts and Culture, Anna Nghipondoka.

The minister announced that a total of 46 977 full-time and 7 348 part-time candidates sat for the 2021 national examinations. However, only 8 817 learners passed and will proceed to Grade 12.

Ndala said the low passing numbers can be attributed to various challenges schools and learners faced during the 2021 academic year, ranging from lockdowns due to COVID-19, which forced government to close down schools, exam paper leakage and perhaps classrooms accommodating more learners than they are supposed to, particularly in public schools.

“If you analyse the results, you can clearly see private schools performed better than government schools. This is because private schools are better equipped, and there is a new curriculum introduced, which teachers might not be familiar with,” said Ndala.

National Unity Democratic Organisation secretary general and Member of Parliament, Joseph Kauandenge said it is disheartening and disappointing to have observed the minister, while announcing the results, being jovial and happy with the “mediocre” results.

“It clearly shows that the line minister is out of touch with reality and is living in outer space, how a line minister can be happy with these disastrous results defies common sense and logic. The minister should have been worried about these poor results, greatly contributed by her ministry for having lax security around examination papers,” he said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency