adminMorris Mtisi Educational Panorama
IT was most heartening and relieving, refreshing perhaps, to see and hear the veteran broadcaster, Lovemore Banda, head-to-head with the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Lazarus Dokora, on a ZBC programme, Economic Forum, recently. Though not quite as assertive as BBC Steven Sucker (HardTalk) or Shaka Ssali (Straight Talk Africa), and not quite like former ZBC talk-show guru Anani Maruta , Lovemore let the minister get away with unanswered questions and unexplored territory. He (Lovemore) tended to be a mere convenience offering the minister a platform to address the nation. It was not one of head-to-head engagements as we know them showcased by notable straight shooters. He went low-key and so lukewarm that one wished Violet Gonda could invite him again on her Hot Seat.
Once given the opportunity to talk to an important minister in charge of a national nerve like Education, one would have expected searching questions and real answers. This was not to be.
The minister capably delivered an address to the audience very much alone in it. It was not a frank, robust head-to-head engagement.
In his heyday at ZBC, Lovemore would have done better, far better, to make the minister answer real questions. Well, that was the best for the day.
The encouraging thing was (is) that the minister made it clear to the nation that a curriculum review was in progress nationwide. That was sweet music to hear from the learned minister. He revealed that what this meant was that everybody who wanted to contribute wisdom to the subject of curriculum amendment or change could do so without any fear or favour.
He called upon fundis in educational institutions, universities and colleges, educational experts in non-governmental organisations, companies and industries to come to review meetings organised nationwide and contribute ideas and suggestions for this curriculum review initiative.
For a starter the minister’s idea and call for a curriculum review is an excellent one, suffice to say it was long overdue. The 644-page 23-chapter Nziramasanga Commission Report on Education suggested everything, hook, line and sinker. Its only problem was that it was not a people’s document.
It did not speak to the average Zimbabwean in the language he or she understood and one that did not stretch him or her far beyond their range of understanding.
In its English erudition and complex presentation, the Nziramasanga Commission Report was not meant for the man and woman in the street. It was not intended for the average parent who is the main investor in education and beneficiary. It was never meant to be in the first place.
What does this curriculum review expect to add to Prof Nziramasanga’s report? This is not to suggest that no one else can think or see above and or beyond the good doctor. No!
The truth is that if his recommendations of 1999, 15 long years ago, had been faithfully heeded and implemented, the education system would have been on track. The curriculum would have been relevant and efficacious in every sense.
Everything said and done, the same curriculum review initiative remains a perfect idea.
Of course sceptics believe this is a ploy to divert attention from the real hot potatoes, some of them being the Ministry of Education’s embarrassing inability to stop leakages of examination papers, the unacceptable yearly low pass rates, the contentious teachers’ salaries’ issue and the ever-deteriorating unemployability of human capital churned out from national universities and colleges.
Dr Dokora’s curriculum review programme already in progress in many parts of the country at designated venues remains a best-practice to introduce democratisation of education in Zimbabwe.
It therefore deserves maximum response to, from all Zimbabweans from all walks of life, to meet the minister’s envoys and assist them to listen carefully and sincerely to ideas and suggestions from alternative voices of reason.
Mutare holds its curriculum review meeting on Friday November 28, 2014 at Mutare Hall (former Queens Hall) at 8.30am.
Online Reporter