adminEdmore Muchirahondo
Albert Einstein, a German-born physicist and philosopher, once remarked: “Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds”.
Could this be true about the debate raging around our education system?
It is a historical fact that the Government inherited the British type of education at independence, expanding it to make it available to all the citizens of the country.
The expanded education was indeed a milestone achievement in the history of the country.
The nation really stood tall on this project.
However, the fact that we have the highest literacy rate in Africa is no longer news.
The whole world knows and has even acknowledged the move that was taken by the country to improve access to education. While a lot has been done on the infrastructure side, little has been done about our curriculum. In fact it was never revamped to meet the needs of the learners.
Today, the high unemployment rate speaks of the inadequacies of the current curricula. We are living in the 21th Century and for this reason, learners should be empowered to meet challenges associated with the new millennium.
The curriculum should therefore be made relevant to the learner, the community and the nation at large.
There are thousands of children who have basic five O-Level subjects but are roaming the streets today. This lack of skills is evident and this is a big let-down for this generation.
It is therefore refreshing to hear Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora speaking with passion on the need to review the education curriculum. Hopefully the process will receive the necessary support from different stakeholders and the nation at large. The recommendations of the 1999 Nziramasanga Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training were quite noble and incisive but those recommendations have been left to gather dust.
They need to be looked, into but with a fresh mind because 15 years is a long period and one would want to believe that some or all the recommendations have been overtaken by events.
This I believe is the justification for the curricula review. Believe me, a child who was born in 2000 is a totally different creature from the one born in 2014 in terms of his or her view of the world.
Closely linked to the curriculum are the weaknesses of the current assessment procedures. Zimbabwe is one of the few countries in Africa that have managed to localise their examinations through the establishment of the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (zimsec) that are now running exams at primary and secondary level.
Yes, the examinations have been localised but not necessarily “indigenised”.
The assessment procedures are highly academic, worse still; Grade Seven examinations come after a long period of time — seven years!
It is important to realise that the British from where we inherited the current curricula have since moved from this framework to a broader and skills competence-based curricula. It is therefore imperative that the new curricula should be:
Competence based
Outcomes based
Encompass continuous assessment.
Embrace technology-demystifying computers and technology.
This entails that some subjects should be collapsed given the fact that the current curriculum is over packed, with some primary school pupil having the burden to muster 17 subjects.
It is for this reason that Minister Dokora had hogged the limelight in various spheres. There is need to give credit where it is due.
One would want to believe that he is pursuing the pro-poor and the pro-people agenda.
This becomes more apparent when one looks at the teacher incentives. True, teachers, like any other civil servants, deserve better remuneration. That explains why the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education issued Circular Number 5 of 2009 which allowed teachers to get incentives.
This was the period of hyperinflationary when teachers could not afford to travel from their homes to their work places. It was made clear that incentives were an interim measure. Now that teachers are getting what in my opinion are reasonable salaries, is it necessary for them to keep clamouring for incentives from parents who are also struggling to eke out a living on daily basis? Who is better remunerated between a teacher and a rural man in Zhombe or Dotito?
It is an international practice for an employee to bargain with an employer for better salary and better living conditions. If that is the case, teachers should direct their negotiations and their pleas to their employer, not to the parents.
For this reason, it was therefore necessary for the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to stop incentives.
After all, if the ministry’s survey showed that only 38 percent of teachers were getting incentives was spot on, then the system was unfair, inequitable and quite clearly illegal.
The ministry is not the Civil Service Commission. The pursuit for incentives was now bordering on unprofessionalism.
Some of the teachers deliberately delayed the completion of syllabuses in order for them to cover them during the holidays or during extra lessons.
The net effect was that it raised the cost of education, making education inaccessible to the poor.
It was even shocking to see some teachers offering extra lessons to ECD learners. There are also cases of the hidden curriculum in these “extra lessons” especially for girls.
What is noteworthy is that the ministry did not put a blanket ban on holiday lessons. Children can still have access to the usual 12-day vacation school.
The ministry should also be commended for its thrust on science and technology that is very noble, visionary and most welcome.
The minister is taking this approach so seriously to the extent that the ministry is mooting the idea of introducing science kits and laboratories in primary schools.
This will nurture our children to appreciate science at a tender age and there is no better way to do it than at elementary level.
For this, it’s kudos to Minister Dokora.
He is one of the ministers who are a few years ahead of our time.
Such thinking is what our country needs and very relevant to our situation as a country today.
I fully support the impending curriculum review and encourage the minister and the ministry to forge ahead.
Online Reporter