Teachers speak against Education Minister, Lazarus Dokora.

• No electricity, 

• No textbooks, no chalkboards

• 7 compulsory subjects but non can give a combination of subjects at A Level.

• Forces national pledge down kids’ throats

By Obert Masaraure| The new Curriculum exposing exclusion, deepening exploitation and cultivating patronage.

The government of Zimbabwe have finally taken heed of the recommendations of the Nziramasanga commission which was published more than a decade ago. They claim they have adopted the recommendations and international best practices in the newly formulated curriculum. The new learning program however exposes the structural exclusion of rural learners, deepens exploitation of the workers and cultivates patronage.

In simple terms a curriculum is the whole package of learning experiences undergone by a learner in the school environment. The realignment of this learning environment has opened our eyes to the stark reality that rural learners are structurally excluded from accessing quality education.

During the colonial era, exclusion was explicit with blacks being prohibited from progressing academically and being forced to practical learning of vocational subjects. After independence the government made cosmetic changes and declared that education was now open to all. In practical sense some learners remained excluded.

The government have never seriously developed infrastructure in most areas to support learning. Learners still learn under trees and in some better circumstances in disused tobacco barns. The Basic Education Access Model ( BEAM), has not been disbursing funds to these schools so the schools can’t afford teaching material, there are no textbooks, chalkboards and any instructional media to help learners.

The rural schools also fail to retain and attract quality teachers and are usually manned by inexperienced, under qualified and demotivated teachers. Rural schools thus constantly record zero % pass rates.

The nation had learnt to normalise this abnormal situation until the new curriculum was introduced.

The new learning program emphasises the use of Information technology yet the bulk of rural schools do not have electricity. There is another thrust of introducing pure sciences like Biology, physics and chemistry yet rural schools don’t have the laboratories to support the learning of science. The teachers manning rural schools are also not able to cope with the demands of the new curriculum. In essence the majority of our rural schools can’t implement either the new curriculum or the old, and yet amid all this, are now forced to learn a new one. We had become used to barring rural learners but the new curriculum is now torturing us and our conscience is now in trouble. But very soon we will learn to ignore and state media will once again declare the changes as a success.

For the workers the new curriculum brings more work and more exploitation. The government has categorically stated that they will not deploy new teachers but new learning areas have been introduced which means the teachers have to shoulder a heavier burden. There are no prospects of salaries being reviewed upward but the workload is being increased.

The new learning program also targets patronising learners by introducing a schools pledge which Dokora loves to call national. Learners are also forced to study something called heritage studies which focuses on the heroic acts of our liberators. Government argues that all this is aimed at instilling patriotism which is a laughable assertion as we all know that citizens can only be patriotic to a state that caters for their needs and they feel duty bound to reciprocate. Patriotism cannot be forced down kid’s throats in a classroom.

• 7 compulsory subjects but non can give a combination of subjects at A Level.

At O level government, introduces 7 compulsory subjects but non of them can give a learner a combination of subjects at A level. Learners are therefore forced to elect 3 more subjects to make a total of 10 subjects including 7 useless but compulsory learning areas. It is interesting to note that government does not pay for exam fees of the learners but parents do. A parent is thus forced to pay a total of US $150 for their kid to sit for O level. This burdens parents unnecessarily and further marginalise rural learners from attaining O levels.

Continuous assessment is now being introduced in new curriculum. The marks awarded to learners from Form 3 to Form 4 will now constitute 30% of the grade awarded to a learner at the conclusion of O level. The first challenge with this model is that there is no standard format of assessing and evaluating learner performance and the teachers have not been trained to do the assessment. Chaos will reign supreme in the implementation of this new paradigm and the results produced will not be a true reflection of learner performance. The second challenge is possibility of corruption from underpaid and demotivated teachers.

All the same the changes to a curriculum are imminent since a learning program should be compatible with contextual realities obtaining at any given point in time. The realities are dynamic and so must be our package of instruction. The government must however make realistic changes and get buy in from citizens. The government must also introduce an education equalisation fund to upgrade rural schools. A attraction and retention allowance must be introduced in rural schools to compensate rural teachers for the multiple challenges they endure discharging their duties.

For now citizens must employ all methods at their disposal to resist the changes introduced in our education until the government learn to consult.

Obert Masaraure
ARTUZ NATIONAL PRESIDENT.
[email protected]