Friday March 4 2016…Watch this space!

Stories by Morris Mtisi
If you read last week’s IN THE CLASSROOM WITH MM, you will have learnt that I promised that from Friday March 4 2016, first week of the month, I will resort to typical classroom practice as opposed to the more general and panoramic view of the education topic in Zimbabwe. This rebranding of the Education Page, please note, is by public demand and the nature of content from the first week and Friday of March 2016 will be typical classroom practice on specific English Language fundamentals.

I have avoided on-the-spot change of content and tactic because I do not want teachers and or students to miss even one installment of the new series. I want to give them, to give you, time to make sure you have subscribed to receive copies of The Manica Post delivered straight into your school and into its student subscribers per class.

School heads, heads of department and students, please organize accessibility of The Manica Post which I will, courtesy of my Editor, write with you in mind every Friday from now onwards.

I call upon teachers and students to contribute materials of interest for publication every Friday. You can contribute comments, remarks, appraisals and indeed questions on areas of interest and even observations from my weekly installments and submit them through my desk.

I will write my column lessons in such a way that every learner of English Language and or Literature in English, for examination purposes or not, can easily follow and master the skills taught. So do not miss one copy of The Manica Post.

Schools that need to embark on this newspaper programme to improve English language proficiency are free to invite me to their school for no fee at all, to train students and teachers on how to use the newspaper as a supplementary ‘textbook’ and to organize efficient means of accessing it. Newspaper Clubs in a school are or can be a brilliant innovation to develop a culture of reading which is almost extinct in the schools today.

We must thank Zim-papers for allowing space in their publications for expert writers to write with teachers and students in mind. I am proud that I advocated this initiative and championed it.

Today newspapers, both our own and others, recognize the value and space papers can offer to support the education sector. They now offer space for good news and materials about educational progress in the schools.

An idea which started like a trial has today bloomed into big business and every paper has jumped onto the bandwagon in such a big way that they have forgotten to credit the protagonist advocates of this wonderful idea.

It is indeed important for important newspapers to transform attitudes and help teachers and learners to use the newspaper as an educational mouth-peace. For years newspapers featured expert writers and commentators on Politics, Sports, Agriculture, Business, Entertainment, Religion and various other areas of life. Very little attention was given to education.

Today every paper provides special space for news about and from schools. We need to continue to move from just writing news about examination results and special individual achievements to making a newspaper a source of expert advice and tuition on certain areas of teaching and learning. That is one of the reasons this Education Page has been rebranded, to satisfy that objective and need.

I kindly request the editors of these papers to make sure errors are reduced or eliminated altogether in the process, in order to meet the intended objective. They (editors) cannot be taught or told how to do this but surely they will know that too many mistakes in spelling and errors ofgrammar will defeat the whole purpose of facilitating teaching and learning.

A contribution to education of the nature proposed here requires very thorough or careful proof-reading and correction of mistakes and common errors of language and fact.

We must ensure that we give our readers value for their money, and nothing can do that better or more effectively than meticulous proof- reading of stories, especially those of an educational nature.