Celebrating Multichoice Namibia’s 25th Anniversary with Ewan Orlam
Innovative Education
What’s your favorite movie or TV series of all time and why did it speak to you so much?
My favorite series would be Suits. I like it because of the way people intimidate each other there and their intelligence. You can see how life really is.
What was the best phase in your life?
My best phase in my life would probably be Grade 10 after the end of the year results came out. I was the top performer in our region and that opened doors for me. I got elected on the Junior Regional Council and I was also elected to serve on the Junior National Council.
What is your biggest success up until now?
My biggest success, will probably be winning the senior Victor Ludorum at our school. People usually intimidate people who are good performers academically. They don’t think they can excel in sports as well. Everybody was looking down on me and during the athletics, I broke the schools 100 meter record and set a new record in the 110 meter hurdles. That was my biggest achievement.
What are your thoughts regarding the MultiChoice Resource Centre? What does this mean for education in Namibia and how has this allowed you to thrive at school?
What MultiChoice provides through its Resource Centre, is television focused learning. Our schools can only go to a certain extent and the MutliChoice Resource Centre through the educational bouquet broadens our mindset. We get more advanced teachings from across Africa and the world. Personally, I get fifty per cent of my subjects from one teacher this year and just getting a different perspective on things, it really helps me a lot.
I think it will help other people a lot as well because through the Resource Centre, we are not only passively watching, the teachers encourage us to write, practice and discuss afterwards and to engage with others.
I’m a very active person, I’m involved in the Science Fare and a lot of competitions, so I sometimes lose out on some class and, my school doesn’t really focus on catching up with individuals. In my Grade 10 year, I was behind in Physical Science and Mathematics specifically. Then one afternoon, I just went through the TV and decided let me check the Mindset channel. They were discussing things from all the subjects and I looked through Life Science, Physical Science and Mathematics.
Do other students also use the educational bouquet that MultiChoice has on DSTV like you do?
Answer: To be honest the learners at my school, hate school but since this Resource Centre, they started loving education because it’s exciting, it’s new, it’s fresh.
What doors has the MultiChoice Resource Centre opened up for you?
When they launched the Resource Centre at my school, I got an opportunity to give a brief impact statement. It turns out they were very impressed by how it helped me and I got the opportunity to go and deliver a speech at Jan Mohr. I also had a cameo appearance in one of their advertisements about the Resource Centre.
How has the MultiChoice Resource Centre enriched innovation within education from your perspective?
Well the ability of the bouquet. It enriched the limitation of teachers as to the traditional way of teaching. You cannot record your teacher in class but with the decoder, you can record important lessons and go back to it and revise.
You are about to be sworn in as a member of the Junior National Council. Where to from here?
I want to become a politician so this is like opening doors for me. I’m getting used to the political environment.
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