Namibia Economist:
Education’s beacon of light

Written by Administrator   
Friday, 01 February 2008 14:29 

TUCSIN celebrates 30 years of upgrade work this year and now boasts three campuses and a complement of nearly 700 students annually. The Windhoek-based TUCSIN Complementary Course and the Tutorial Courses (operating at the National Training Authority and in Oshakati) basically give students from all over the country a six-month upgrade programme to repeat their NSSC subjects.

The objective is a chance for tertiary education at UNAM or the Polytechnic. The Alumni Association has over 500 members, drawn from scholarship candidates and students from the upgrade courses, most of which are now successful professionals. 

In the results published this week, the Ministry of Education ranks TUCSIN at 7th position for schools in the Khomas Region and at 17th position nationwide from a complement of 123 schools. These positions are significant, given that students have only a six-month timeframe to upgrade and that, in terms of the formal educational system, they may be considered ‘failures’.

The Ministry of Education statistics also indicate that, of the 78 part-time educational institutions in Namibia, TUCSIN TUT course at the National Training Authority(NTA) is ranked 5th for English and Oshakati ranks 8th. In Biology and Mathematics, the TUCSIN Centre at Oshakati ranks 1st in Namibia.

Subject ranking of part-time centres in Namibia puts the TUCSIN centre at the NTA in second position for Biology, Physical Science, Development Studies and Economics, and first for Accounting and Business Studies.

Steven Teya studied Development Studies for the first time at TUCSIN last year. He successfully compressed a two-year syllabus into six months and obtained an A* in the recent NSSC examinations. Another A* success story is Andreas Musheko in Biology. Andreas left school in 2003 and spent time working for a South African retail outlet in Windhoek. He then realized that he did not want to waste his life working for a low salary.

Now he aims to register for Psychology at UNAM and his goal is to become an Industrial Psychologist. Andreas gave credit to “the very strict rules at TUCSIN and the excellent teachers.”  The teachers had confidence in his ability and “boosted his morale”.

Selma Imene improved her Physical Science results from a D to an A – in six months. She attributes this success not only to her own hard work but to the serious approach of the teachers who looked at her work and gave her regular feedback on her performance. This, she claims, gave her confidence. 

“I am so proud of myself,” she said, “Last year I really had to do something. I am not really that dumb.”