Govt committed to a successful new curriculum

Government is highly committed to the success of the new education curriculum which was rolled out in January after a successful pilot project last year.  

The Government has recently secured funds towards the procurement of the new curriculum material, intends to build seventeen state of the art schools as well as feeding all primary school learners. These programmes, among others, will positively contribute to the success of the new curriculum.  

A week ago, Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Dr Lazarus Dokora revealed that Government had secured $9 million from development partners to purchase learning and teaching materials for primary and secondary schools under the new education curriculum. This Government commitment will bring hope to the classroom practitioners who were finding it difficult to implement the new curriculum due to shortage of resources.

Although some critics have castigated the introduction of the new curriculum, accusing Minister Dokora of being over ambitious and overburdening the sector with unnecessary policies and that there were no resources, the availability of funds will go a long way to make work easier for teachers and learners and produce desired results.

The much needed materials which include textbooks, sporting and agricultural equipment, among others will benefit Early Childhood Development A, Grades one and three as well as Forms One, Three and Five.

 The new curriculum which was rolled out in January after a successful pilot project in 2016 has a good package which is expected to produce a wholesome and fully baked learner. Such products of the new curriculum are envisaged to adapt easily to any prevailing socio-economic environment.

The provision of learning materials will make the new curriculum achieve its mandate of ushering in a paradigm shift to the education system and effectively expose the learner to the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and Heritage Studies as well as exposing learners to life and work learning contexts through the life skills orientation programs.

A few weeks ago, Government announced its intention to build 17 world class primary and secondary schools countrywide to match internationally acclaimed education systems. This noble idea will assist in decongesting schools and improve teacher pupil ratio which has a bearing on the quality of education in the country.

The move to build schools will improve teachers' working conditions in implementing the new curriculum as well as complementing Zim Asset's Infrastructure and Utilities Cluster. The country currently boasts of 8500 primary and secondary schools and the proposed new schools are part of Government's short term plan which will see the construction of more than 2000 world class schools across Zimbabwe.

Feeding of all primary school pupils in the country by year end as announced by the Government some weeks ago, will also assist in the implementation of the new curriculum as the move improves nutrition as well as attendance. Most primary school learners in the rural areas suffer from malnutrition. Some of them sometimes do not go to school while others have since dropped out because of hunger.

The feeding programme will definitely motivate them to come to school. This Government programme complements ZimAsset's food security and nutrition cluster which aims at improving availability of quality food and nutrition. Initially the programme only targeted 1.5 million early childhood learners and Grades 1 and 2 pupils, but now includes Grades 3 to 7.