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Zvamaida Murwira-Senior Reporter
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education should reduce the number of subjects pupils are learning under Continuous Assessment Learning Activities (CALA) and allow them to concentrate on those areas they are good at, legislators have said.
Legislators feel the ministry has turned learners into “Jacks of all trades but masters of none” by heaping more than 30 learning areas under CALA thereby defeating the initial objectives of imparting creativity and innovation consistent with the Second Republic’s thrust of modernisation and industrialisation of the country.
This came out during an engagement meeting between the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Education on progress of the review of the curriculum that is currently underway.
Committee chairperson and Gokwe Chireya Member of Parliament Cde Torerayi Moyo (Zanu PF) said they called officials from the ministry to have a progress report on the curriculum review.
Bikita East MP Cde Johnson Madhuku (Zanu PF) said the ministry should reduce the number of Cala subjects as pupils were now concentrating on it more than actual learning subjects.
“From the submission from the ministry, skills which were supposed to be inculcated through Cala are almost the same skills to be done in other learning areas called subject areas. You talk of innovation, industrialisation and knowledge it is almost the same skills. I do not think it is necessary to labour learners with numerous learning areas, more than the subject areas themselves, it is not proper because it is not scientific.
“We know there is specialisation, division of labour. There is no point in having a student doing many Calas per learning area or in every subject. Somebody is just supposed to take probably one Cala be it in sciences, commercials or arts,” said Cde Madhuku.
He said they had been making same submissions over the years but the ministry did not appear to be taking heed.
“We have been making some of these submission to the ministry but it appears they did not want to listen. Even when they were making their consultations recently they were saying ‘Cala is here to stay,’ I do not think that they are doing these consultations in good faith.”
Mount Pleasant MP, Mr Samuel Banda said the ministry should allow pupils to identify areas that they were good in and make them their Cala subjects.
“In the past they would ask what are you good in, you might be good in sports, physical education, music, maths, cooking and then tailor make the Calas towards what you are good at. Cala is not a bad area but if there are 30 Calas then that is bad. Let Cala be based on competencies. What we are doing at the moment is to create a jack of all trade and master of none. What I thought is the idea of Cala is to bring out specification by concentrating in an area or area of interest which they know best to enable that child to be able to be creative and innovative,” said Mr Banda.
“They need to concentrate on areas they know best and not concentrate on everything. We need to bring specification and standardisation. Cala is good and even studies carried by Thomas Firamumwe, showed it’s good but at the moment, teachers, parents and students have negative attitude towards Cala so for that negative attitude to go you have to reduce the size,” said Mr Banda.
The ministry’s Chief Director, Mr Cyprien Masocha said he was of the view that the number of Cala subjects was plausible in light of the national objectives of the country. He said one challenge with pupils was that they were taking long to grasp the ability to read and write hence the reason for struggling to apply their mind on Cala.
“In my view the number is okay because we are looking at our pupils acquiring practical skills to be able to solve their own problems, problems of their families, their village and the country at large and be able to come up with innovative ideas that will modernise the industrialise the country so that we attain our vision as a country,” said Mr Masocha.
He said consultations for new syllabi are still ongoing and should be completed by year end so that implementation of a revised 2024-to 2030 Primary and Secondary Education Competence based curriculum frame be implemented in January next year.
He said the ministry was still engaging stakeholders to collect data and produce a curriculum review report and draft a revised framework for validation before implementation.
“As such we call for your support and input to ensure that in all our efforts to educate the nation we work towards producing pupils who have key competencies necessary for national development. Our pedagogical approaches inclusive of our assessment modalities should be geared to competence development,” said Mr Masocha.
“We aim to review the syllabi for the various learning areas and the assessment framework by December 31, 2023. This is to ensure we start implementation of the revised 2024-2030 primary and secondary education Competence-Based Curriculum Framework in January 2024. Alone as a ministry we cannot make it. We need you all to walk with us, advise us and support us. Let us remember that true sustainable development should be based on good grounding of the education system especially at the primary and secondary education level.”
Some of the issues for review is the need to address new challenges of contemporary life in the country, renewed emphasis on education for sustainable development, continue to refine assessment modalities so as to achieve a broad curriculum objectives, a shift towards learning outcomes among others.
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