Parents urged to make use of indigenous knowledge systems

BAOBAB Education Assessment Centre (BEAC), a local organisation that focuses on learners with learning difficulties, has urged parents to make use of indigenous knowledge systems in teaching their children.

BEAC believes that traditional games such as igwini and readily available materials like sweet reeds can be used to train children’s minds to grasp concepts such as coordinating issues, dividing, number line, sets and others.

Speaking in Nkayi at the recently held Imiklomelo kaDakamela Awards, neurological remedial specialist and director at BEAC, Dr Themba Nyoni, said cases of neurological conditions associated with learning difficulties are on the increase, thereby contributing to low pass rates.

The most common conditions are dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia which affect learning basic skills such as reading and writing.

“We focus on learners with learning difficulties and our role is to raise awareness on the learning difficulties they face and provide holistic assessment and interventions to all learners depending on what the assessment would have revealed,” he said.

“We then advocate for intervention on learners as we provide holistic intervention programmes. Many parents face a predicament of children who struggle to read and write. What makes the situation worse is that many of these parents are ignorant of neurological problems and how the conditions can be rectified.”

Dr Nyoni said various neurological conditions can also interfere with higher-level skills such as organisation, time planning, abstract reasoning, long and short memory.

“Government is trying to identify challenges, do assessment and provide intervention to learners and we work together complementing each other. We did research in Lupane and established that most learners had dyslexia and dyscalculia,” said Dr Nyoni.

“So, we came up with the ‘Get out of the classroom’ project, as we believe that incorporating the importance of traditional games such as igwini, or use of indigenous knowledge systems like sweet reeds to introduce concepts of the number line, sets and others help. Learning should be fun and should also make sense to the learner.”

Dr Nyoni said they are also doing projects nationally.

“Now, we are in Buhera working with World Vision to assist Grade Three learners to improve in terms of reading and writing,” he said.

Dr Nyoni said similar projects were done in Lupane and parts of Matabeleland South.

BEAC provides solutions around Zimbabwe through assessment, therapy, custom education programmes and evaluation while conducting awareness campaigns.