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Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
IMPLEMENTATION of a language policy that will see teachers required to understand at least four mandatory languages is on the cards, as part of measures to overcome the language barrier in the primary and secondary education sector.
The policy which was introduced in 2019 requires all enrolled students at teachers’ colleges to learn three more languages other than their own. The Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education Professor Amon Murwira last week said the implementation of the policy would see more teachers being multilingual and curbing the language barrier challenges in teaching practices.
“You would know that since 2019, the policy for training teachers is now requiring all enrolled teachers at a teachers’ college to learn three more languages other than their own. What this means is that a person or a teacher who graduates at the teachers’ college is able to operate in areas where they are competent in terms of language, but what we are also doing is to increase the pool of Zimbabweans who are multilingual. It therefore means that as we go into the future there will no longer be language barriers and the headaches associated with deployment of teachers in areas where their original languages are not spoken,” said Prof Murwira.
He said according to training schedules, Zimbabwe still has a shortage of trained teachers with around 15 000 to 20 000 vacancies. He said while the ministry continues to train more teachers, it had also introduced various programmes meant to empower graduates as well as establish more schools.
“We will continue training Zimbabweans, but one of the most important things that we have done also is what we call the graduate employment programme. This is where graduates form consortiums like innovation clubs where they can put ideas together to start a school, but we fund the construction of those schools using what we call the Integrated Skills Outreach Programme.
“We have started doing that with colleges in Chiwundura. This year we have started constructing a school called Gangaragwe School. This is a school where our graduates that have graduated from Mkoba Teachers’ College will teach as a consortium because Zimbabwe still has a shortage of about 3 000 to 4 000 schools,” said Prof Murwira.
According to Section 75 (2) of the constitution any individual can establish a school and Government is using that section to have graduates start their own schools. Prof Murwira said they were providing finances so that they could expand schools infrastructure in terms of the private school establishment.
“We believe that this will reduce the pressure at the available schools by undertaking this new approach to construction of schools. Our students from polytechnics and so forth are the ones who will build the schools while our trained teachers will teach at those schools. Parents would then not be inconvenienced by queuing for the few places available against a background of high demand. We believe that this will bring dignity to our people,” said Prof Murwira. — @nyeve14
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