Education
NATIONAL OUTREACH PROGRAMME
During 2019, the Rössing Foundation National Outreach Programme support to the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture was reduced to one region, namely the Kavango West Education Directorate, more specifically to the Kahenge Combined Secondary School.
The specific support to Kahenge Combined school was the result of an earlier intervention during June 2019 when it was discovered that the school can benefit much by focused support in ensuring effective teaching and learning is taking place. Therefore, an additional visit was sponsored by the Rössing Foundation and a total of 23 teachers and 992 learners were supported.
Group work in progress during Training of School Board Trainers of Kunene Education Directorate in 2019.
Mr Fillemon Nangolo, representing the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, during the Training of Trainers in Kunene, in discussion with Mr Beans Ngatjizeko, one of the Master Trainers.
SCHOOL GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME
Social Accountability and School Governance Programme
“UNICEF has been collaborating with the Rössing Foundation since 2011 to support the implementation of the Social Accountability and School Governance Programme (SASG) in the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (MoEAC). The programme is being implemented within the framework of MoEAC to strengthen the performance and standard indicators and to ensure meaningful parental and community involvement in the education of their children through the motto: “Education is a shared responsibility”.
To date, Rössing Foundation has trained School Board Members to have an informed understanding of their respective roles and responsibilities for effective school governance training which also included understanding the importance of data for better planning and budgeting, resource mobilisation, addressing issues related to school health and safety, children with special needs and disabilities, as well as improving learning through physical education and school sports.
Both UNICEF and the Ministry of Education continue to value partnership with Rössing Foundation, especially through the ongoing professional support from Mr Job Tjiho, Fillemon Vatillifa and Edmund Swartz.” Dr Aune Victor, Education Specialist
Dr Aune Victor
Education Specialist,
UNICEF
TRAINING OF MASTER TRAINERS
A training of the Master Trainers of School Boards was conducted in September 2019 in Windhoek.
The objective of the training was to enable the Master Trainers to use the Social Accountability and School Governance Tools to empower School Board Trainers to be able to capacitate school boards in their regions, circuits and schools.
The Master Trainers included three consultants and three Rössing Foundation staff comprising of the Executive Director, Chief Education Officer and Coordinator of the Outreach Programmes. Two UNICEF and one ‘Star for Life’ staff members also attended the training in an observation and support capacity. During the training, all presentations for the Training of Trainers were prepared and trial runs were conducted to ensure that no grey areas were left unattended to.
TRAINING OF SCHOOL BOARD MASTER TRAINERS
The School Board training for the Kunene Directorate of Education was conducted in October 2019 in Khorixas. In the Oshana Region, the training for the two Oshana School Boards groups were conducted in November 2019 in Oshakati and Ondangwa respectively.
The objective of the training was to capacitate the Regional School Board Trainers to enable them to roll out the training of the School Boards in their clusters. It also aimed for School Boards to have a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities to use the social accountability tools and model systems, to monitor school performance and inform education sector monitoring at local, regional and national level.
Group work in progress during Training of School Board Trainers of Kunene Education Directorate in 2019.
Piloting the Mobile Planetarium of the
Africa Millimetre Telescope
The Educational Outreach programme aims to expose and educate teachers and learners from many schools in Namibia by means of a mobile planetarium, developing and offering associated curricula and teachers training. Given the size of Namibia and the widely-spread population in the country, this may require approximately four to five years to roll out the full programme.
The mobile planetarium in Namibia offers unique opportunities for education, as it will help the learners to gain a better understanding of the universe.
The planetarium can also be used for a wide range of school subjects, as programmes and lessons will be developed for science subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography and Biology.
Cooperation with both universities in Namibia will help to create local staff capacity for the future of the overarching Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT) project. The Mobile Planetarium was piloted at the Mokganedi Thlabanelo Senior Secondary School in the Omaheke Region, and at the Kahenge Combined School in the Kavango West Region. It will assist teachers and learners to explore astronomy (planets and stars), thereby making abstract concepts more concrete and, in doing so, encouraging learners to pursue scientific careers at tertiary institutions.
In total, 1,588 learners from different schools in Namibia, including students from the University of Namibia, were given the opportunity to test the Mobile Planetarium in April 2019.
Learners and students who participated overall were drawn from UNAM (250 students), while 125 learners from Windhoek High School, 500 from Mokganedi Thlabanelo Senior School at Drimiopsis, including a primary school and kindergartens and 722 learners from Kahenge Combined School participated, while additional learners from the following schools were also exposed to the facility:
- Kanuni Combined Schools
- Himalwa Iithete Senior School
- Namavambi Primary School
- Kandjimi Murangi Senior School
- Simanya Combined School
- Tondoro Combined School, and
- Nkurenkuru Combined School.
The Rössing Foundation has been selected as a partner with Radboud University and NOVA, both from the Netherlands, and the University of Namibia in the implementation of the Mobile Planetarium of the Africa Millimetre Telescope Outreach programme.
The roll-out of the project will commence in September 2020 and will form part of the Rössing Foundation National Outreach programme. The project will run over five years with the vision of covering many of the schools in Namibia.
Learners of the Mokganedi Thlabanelo Senior Secondary School participated in the piloting of the Mobile Planetarium.
