ECD centres short-changing learners on E-learning

Nokukhanya Moyo, Sunday News Reporter
A MAJORITY of Early Child­hood Devel­op­ment (ECD) centres are short chang­ing their learn­ers by not teach­ing them what is in the new In­for­ma­tion, Commu­ni­ca­tion and Tech­nol­ogy (ICT) cur­ricu­lum de­spite ad­ver­tis­ing on their fliers and mak­ing par­ents pay for com­puter lessons.

This reve­la­tion came out at a work­shop on E-learn­ing in the new cur­ricu­lum that was held in Bulawayo recently. The workshop was or­gan­ised by Dzidzo In­haka Au­dio Vis­ual learn­ing and was aimed at building teacher capacity in E-learning for ECD in line with the thrust of the new education curriculum. About 30 teach­ers and di­rec­tors of ju­nior schools and ECD cen­tres attended and confessed that there were indeed shortchanging parents and children. Ex­cept just a few, most ad­mit­ted that they were in­deed short chang­ing learn­ers by just do­ing make up lessons to im­press par­ents.

Dis­play­ing of com­put­ers at re­cep­tion, nam­ing of com­puter parts and their use, switch­ing on and shut­ting down at most is what most schools are do­ing which is a far cry to the real computer op­er­a­tion rec­om­mended by the Min­istry of Pri­mary and Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion under the new curriculum.

The work­shop also cov­ered in­te­gra­tion of E-learn­ing in other sub­jects. With the aid of vi­su­als, teach­ers were able to un­der­stand new sub­jects in the cur­ricu­lum like mass dis­plays, phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion, sci­ence and dis­cov­ery, sovereignty and her­itage stud­ies which are essential components of the new education curriculum for ECD.

In an in in­ter­view, Dzidzo In­haka executive director Mr Shepherd Chimururi said, “Most schools are tak­ing ad­van­tage of par­ents who do not know what the cur­ricu­lum says, as a re­sult they do not know what skills to ex­pect from their chil­dren. The Min­istry must move to pro­tect the un­sus­pect­ing par­ents who are be­ing ripped off by mon­i­tor­ing chil­dren’s com­puter lessons.”

One of the directors said the work­shop was just a tip of an ice­berg of what was there to learn about E-learn­ing.

The Dzidzo In­haka team has also en­gaged pop­u­lar dance­hall artiste Seh Calaz to do an E-learn­ing themed song en­ti­tled “E- learn­ing irikub­vira” to be re­leased in two weeks.

@nonozar3