Chronicle Editor
Charles Dube
THANKS to the new educational thrust 5.0 which emphasises innovation and skills. Learners are required to have acquired some skills when they leave school. This has been lacking in our education system.
Learners left school expecting to be employed somewhere even though they did not have the necessary skills. This is the reason why our country is labouring under a high unemployment rate yet we boast of a high literacy rate.
There is now a paradigm shift from such thinking and learners churned out of colleges have a different mindset.
They talk of going out to create employment by starting their own businesses because they have the skills. I hope this time people will fully embrace this thrust. Such moves to equip learners with life skills have been made before, but, were met with some form of resistance. Before independence secondary schools were divided into two categories.
Schools offering practical subjects were referred to as F2, while those offering purely academic subjects were referred to as F1.
At the onset F2 schools were regarded as inferior by both parents and learners, as a result there were less takers of places at those schools. Learners who excelled at Grade Seven opted for F1 schools where there was less emphasis on practical subjects. Parents, guardians, and learners looked forward to doing office work.
It was a pleasant sight to see one clad in a suit and tie.
The irony of it is that the company bosses of those companies who employed the elegantly dressed employees spent more time out on the farms tending to their big herds of cattle and tilling huge tracts of land which in turn gave them large sums of money. The office workers in town were paid a pittance.
The said part of it is that they remained workers who did not own the means of production. As a result that division of schools between F1 and F2 was eventually abandoned.
However, that was not for long as after the attainment of independence some schools specialising in practical subjects were set up again under the ZIMFEP programme.
The thrust again was to equip learners with practical skills relevant in life. Learners who passed through those F2 and ZIMFEP schools are employers in their own way.
They are not struggling for jobs as they create jobs themselves.
At times we blame people for the negative attitude to innovations coming in, yet, they lack information. For example, if this 5.0 thrust is not explained from the top to the grassroots in simple language will take time to cascade downwards. It is a very noble and workable programme if well-resourced and supported.
I happened to hear the Honourable Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education Amon Murwira, articulating this educational thrust in the Senate and I was impressed.
The majority of senators who were there on that particular day were equally impressed by the presentation.
I was happy to hear some of the senators suggesting that the policy needed to be explained to all the people including those in the grassroots because they heard its advantages concerning job creation.
So 5.0 is the in thing today which needs to be embraced by all the institutions of learning as well as learners.
Reality on the ground shows that fewer people will be employed by the current industries and those to come in future. Technology is taking over in many spheres.
Machinery is taking over even in menial jobs where hundreds of unskilled labour used to be utilised. For example, many people used to be employed by local authorities in cities and towns for grave digging but nowadays modern machinery has taken over and fewer people are engaged for those services.
Trenches for internet wires are now dug by machines. Manpower comes in to cover the trenches when wiring has been laid down. These are a couple of examples showing that technology has wiped out a number of jobs.
This serves to show us as a people that we should not live in the past and hope that when closed companies re-open they will absorb all the workers who were previously employed there.
Such thinking reflects degeneration instead of forward thinking. Parents, guardians and learners should embrace new technologies and move forward.
Learners should aim at being employment creators rather than employees.
Slowly but surely learners should graduate with a certain life skill which will help develop the country.
Days of being armchair critics of the system without solutions should be coming to an end.
Meanwhile, moving along to achieve those skills learning other subjects should continue because at the end of the day you need a full certificate which is made up of five subjects passed with at least a Grade C or above at O-level.
However, with special skills that requirement does not stop one from being an employment creator.
Learners try this exercise — write the correct verb form in brackets: I (call) home when I arrived. I have (pay) all my bills. As more people talked, the rumours (grow). All the details of the new law are not yet (know).
By the time they got up, the sun had (rise) and the beach was crowded. I (catch) a cold last week. Your front right tire has (spring) a leak. When I (bite) into the apple, I realised that it wasn’t yet ripe.
There were many phone calls that I (become) annoyed.
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