School curriculum review on cards

via School curriculum review on cards – DailyNews Live 7 September 2014 by Margaret Chinowaita

HARARE – Zimbabwe will soon review the school curriculum to equip learners with the capacity to create employment, a government official has said.

Paul Mavima, deputy minister of Primary and Secondary Education, said the pending curriculum review was expected to start soon.

“What children learn is of major concern to us,” Mavima said.

“The curriculum content should remain relevant to the learner, the community and the nation at large.”

Mavima said the high unemployment rate prevalent in Zimbabwe was testimony to the inadequacies of the current curriculum.

The envisaged curriculum review will involve all stakeholders with consultations beginning at school level up to national level.

The ministry will take into account recommendations of the Nziramasanga Commission report of 1999.

The report stated that the 100 percent academic orientation was not beneficial to the nation.

Part of the key recommendations was to balance Zimbabwean education curriculum between academic and vocational orientation.

Lazarus Dokora, the minister of Primary and Secondary Education, said now was the time to implement the Nziramasanga Commission recommendations.

“I think it is common cause in our country that the Nziramasanga Commission of 1999, has been partially implemented and in some way you could say not in a holistic manner particularly by my ministry,” Dokora said.  “Coming 15 years down the line when some nations have actually taken up the report, I know of two countries that are actively implementing the report. Namibia is one of them, we should implement it now.”

Dokora said given the changes that have taken place since the report was produced, the ministry could not take it wholesale. Areas that have changed are the advent of Information, Communication Technology (ICTs) that are used by children and should be adapted in the curriculum.

Asked whether funding for the pending curriculum review was available, Dokora said: “You know for 15 years that question stopped a lot of things. I am one of those people that believe that we should get started and I will see it on the way.”

Teachers would have to be trained with special skills to match the new curriculum.

“As a way of responding to the dynamics of the new economy which now requires a new teacher with relevant skills, the ministry of Primary and Secondary Education launched the capacity development programme for teachers on July 24, 2014,” Mavima said.

The programme seeks to restore the professional status of the teacher in the community as the ministry recognises the centrality of qualified teachers in the pursuit of the delivery of quality education.