The Directorate of Education in the Otjozondjupa Region is hosting a regional educational career guidance fair at various schools in the region, with different stakeholders and ministries exhibiting.

The career fair is held to enhance career awareness among school learners, particularly those in grades 11 and 12, so they can familiarise themselves with a range of career paths and opportunities. 

The Regional Deputy Director for Quality Assurance, Uerivangera Tjivikua, at the opening of the fair at Grootfontein Secondary School, explained the importance of hosting such events.

"One of the most important reasons for hosting career exhibitions is to foster connections. When you have connections, learners engage directly with institutions of higher learning; you connect directly with professionals, people who are already in employment, in different organisations, corporate companies, ministries, offices, and agencies, to get an opportunity to connect directly with them, to engage them directly, to talk to them, and to get to learn more about what those professions are about."

Otjozondjupa Governor John ||Khamuseb encouraged school learners to be proactive in shaping their futures.

"Smaller kids at the pre-primary school are already oriented and exposed to models of careers that they ought to follow. They are being taught in models of tourism, cooking, engineering, and building blocks so that their level of interest is tested at the basic level. It is high time that education also reintroduces an intelligence quotient of a child in the early stages, so that we can identify the kind of career that interests that child. Shockingly, at grade 12, grade 11 level, some of our kids would tell you, I have not chosen yet which career to follow. That motivational drive should already come from a primary school to a secondary school."

The five-day-long career fair started at Tsumkwe, from which it will move to Otjiwarongo, Okakarara and Okahandja.