Brighton Chiseva
MASVINGO –Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary Thumisang Thabela has bemoaned the situation in Zimbabwean schools which she said are still divorced from real life situations.
Thabela was speaking at the belated presentation of the 2019 Secretary’s Merit Award at Mutendi Primary School where she said schools were failing to meet the demands of Education 5.0.
She said schools should move away from the old education system where pupils were trained to cram bookish theories which they could not apply in real life.
“Our education system is still divorced from our lives though we have the competence based curricula, we need to teach life skills here at school not to teach theory.
“I often hear teachers complaining about Continuous Assessment Learning Activity (CALAs) but pupils do them every day without being awarded marks. I see here there are mass displays being done by learners, are you giving them marks? You want to wait to get back to class so that you give them tasks to prepare something about providing entertainment. You should give marks on these; these are actually CALAs they are doing and they do it every day,” said Thabela.
She went on to castigate schools for failing to utilize the Zimbabwe Learning Passport, a mobile application that provides free educational resources to learners, parents and educators and sticking to old ways of doing things.
“Why are you not utilizing the Learning Passport? The government has used a lot of resources to develop a number of things to transform our education but you are not using them. Failing to utilize a computer laboratory is a crime,” she said.
Tabela however commended Mutendi Primary School for having viable projects which she said help pupils acquire requisite skills.
“The school has viable projects such as bee keeping, poultry, having a herd of cattle, a nutrition garden and a 5 hectare dry land for agriculture mainly for grain and beans cropping. By being involved in such projects, pupils acquire skills and competencies to sustain their lives including financial literacy for managing commercial units.
“These income generating projects are in tandem with the government of Zimbabwe’s call for schools to modernize and commercialize as espoused in the National Development Strategy 1,” said Thabela.
At Chibi High where she was handing the Secondary School category Merit Award Thabela said education that has nothing to do with people’s lives was failed education saying it has to move from making people cram to pass exams.
“The old curriculum was a failed one, people were told to remember what Bismarck said; what does knowing that Tshaka’s mother was Nandi help a child? The things we were putting energy on do not matter but acquiring knowledge is what is important.
“We cannot continue doing things the same way and claim that we are transforming. We are saying enough is enough, today’s child will not survive if what you teach them is to cram here,” she said.
She went on to challenge the school to make sure that pupils are attached to the school bakery which is thriving so that they can use that knowledge to survive after school.
Thabela also told school heads that schools should go commercial and raise money to ease financial burdens while also making sure that they have viable agricultural projects where everyone is involved.
“A government decision was made that schools should commercialize, agriculture is now compulsory, everyone should eat from his or her sweat and that means one should contribute at least to half of the food he or she eats,” said Thabela.
Reformed Church in Zimbabwe (RCZ) Education Secretary Dr Julius Witmos Mutumburanzou said their schools are already commercial but to a lesser extend saying the emphasis made by the PS is enough for them to fully implement.
“All our schools have some commercial projects and now that you have said it, we are going to fully implement it as soon as possible,” said Dr Mutumburanzou.
The competence-based curriculum at one point faced criticism after government was accused of imposing the CALA system without the consent of other stakeholders like educators while at the same time parents are skeptical of the tasks involved as schools just delegate duties to learners and as a result parents will have to fork out of own pockets to pay for their children to do CALAs.
