Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
SCHOOLS should, without fail, implement the continuous assessment concept to identify potential in children, which can be developed into skills that can help drive the country towards achieving its development agenda.
Schools should also venture into income generating projects to be self-sustaining and contribute to Gross Domestic Product.
Primary and Secondary Education Secretary Mrs Tumisang Thabela said this while officiating at the presentation of the Secretary’s Merit Award to Chamabondo Primary School and Mosi-oa-Tunya High School in Victoria Falls on Thursday.
The two schools exhibited all round excellence in fulfilling the Ministry’s mandate of offering a highly competitive and relevant 21st century child centred education in 2017 (Mosi-oa-Tunya) and 2018 for Chamabondo.
Mrs Thabela said continuous assessment is a holistic assessment that tracks a child’s potential in class and through various skills.
She said education is not sitting in a classroom or face-to-face learning only hence the competence-based curriculum which is meant to equip learners with 21st century skills and profiles such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication and team building, leadership and technological advancement as well as ubuntu which is the philosophy that underpins the curriculum.
The competence-based curriculum is focused on science and technology, vocational and technical education, e-teaching and e-learning whose call is to realise that sport, music, arts and culture are not entertainment but places where children can earn a living.
“There are a number of children who have failed external exams because the day before the exam they lost a mother or a father but with a combination of formative and summative performance will then indicate what were the strengths of the child and we can see how we can rescue the child,” she said.
“The new assessment framework which is now complete and which we are starting in 2021 has both continuous assessment element and a summative or end of syllabus cycle assessment.
It is then imperative that all schools implement the continuous assessment through the continuous learning assessment activities as a policy directive and move towards implementing more fairer way of determining what a child can do or make in addition to what a child can remember.”
Mrs Thabela called for capacitation of Early Childhood Development institutions so as to produce learners who can read and write at Grade Two for a strong learning foundation.
“I want to encourage those in primary school to make sure the infant is done right and once done right with the competence based curriculum we are likely to tap into their talents and make sure that by the time they leave the school they are fit for purpose and fit for life.
There was a directive from Cabinet that all our schools should venture into income generating projects so that we take theory and transfer it into practice and create employment in the community and more importantly children can apply the theory they are given in class in line with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) whose aim is to fulfil this country’s national vision of an upper middle income by 2030,” said Mrs Thabela.
She said Government had noted some form of resistance to the concept and addressed it through training teachers on the continuous assessment. – @ncubeleon.
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