Browsing by Author "Beukes, Florida"

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    Investigating factors that lead to school dropout in Namibia
    (University of Namibia, 2015) Nekongo-Nielsen, Haaveshe; Mbukusa, Nchindo R.; Tjiramba, Emmy; Beukes, Florida
    Although schools report a variety of reasons why learners leave school prematurely, these reasons do not reveal the underlying causes, especially multiple factors that influence learners’ attitudes, behaviours, and performance prior to dropping out. In order to understand the underlying causes behind learners’ decisions for dropping out, using a quantitative approach through document analysis this study first analysed the Education Management Information System (EMIS) reports for 2005 to 2009. The findings revealed that Kavango, Kunene and Omaheke regions were the regions with the highest dropout rates in the country. Using a qualitative approach, with a phenomenological design, the researchers interviewed school principals, school counsellors and teachers at randomly selected 20% of schools with the highest dropout rate for each region. This resulted into 58 schools in the Kavango region, 10 schools in the Kunene region and 5 schools in the Omaheke region. At the same schools, and using the snowball sampling procedure, the researchers selected and interviewed learners who have dropped out at some point during their schooling days but came back to school. The study found that, for all the learners interviewed, 50% of learners dropped out due to pregnancy, 20% dropped out due to economic factors, 15% due to system factors, 11% due to lack of parental involvement, and 4% due to cultural factors. On the basis of the findings a number of recommendations are made to mitigate the dropout phenomenon.
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    Investigating factors that lead to school dropout in Namibia
    (University of Namibia, 2015) Mbukusa, Nchindo R.; Tjiramba, Emmy; Beukes, Florida; Nekongo-Nielsen, Haaveshe
    Although schools report a variety of reasons why learners leave school prematurely, these reasons do not reveal the underlying causes, especially multiple factors that influence learners’ attitudes, behaviours, and performance prior to dropping out. In order to understand the underlying causes behind learners’ decisions for dropping out, using a quantitative approach through document analysis this study first analysed the Education Management Information System (EMIS) reports for 2005 to 2009. The findings revealed that Kavango, Kunene and Omaheke regions were the regions with the highest dropout rates in the country. Using a qualitative approach, with a phenomenological design, the researchers interviewed school principals, school counsellors and teachers at randomly selected 20% of schools with the highest dropout rate for each region. This resulted into 58 schools in the Kavango region, 10 schools in the Kunene region and 5 schools in the Omaheke region. At the same schools, and using the snowball sampling procedure, the researchers selected and interviewed learners who have dropped out at some point during their schooling days but came back to school. The study found that, for all the learners interviewed, 50% of learners dropped out due to pregnancy, 20% dropped out due to economic factors, 15% due to system factors, 11% due to lack of parental involvement, and 4% due to cultural factors. On the basis of the findings a number of recommendations are made to mitigate the dropout phenomenon. Keywords: dropout, teenage/learner pregnancy, child labour, parental involvement, childheaded households
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    Managing equitable assessment practices in Distance Education: Implications for higher education institutions in Namibia
    (Namibian Educational Research Association (NERA), 2011) Beukes, Florida
    Lecturers tend to assume that their carefully crafted resources will guide student learning and that students will work through our materials more or less in the manner directed. However, research into distance students’ use of study materials (Merland et al, 1990) and the use of formative activities (Lockwood,1995) suggests that there are far more complex behaviours at work. The amount of support services an institution can off er largely depends on that particular institution’s capacity and resources at its disposal. For ODL to be effective, effective management and administration systems need to be put in place. It is particularly important to make sure that ODL students are not isolated though they may be at a distance. An effective system of two-way communication between student and institution is therefore an important element of good management and administration.