Chamisa promises to scrap CALA, school, exam fees

Citizens Coalition for Change president Nelson Chamisa has said once his party gets into government he will review the Zimbabwe education system and scrap the Continuous Assessment Learning Activities (CALA), school fees for primary and advanced level as well as examination fees.

Chamisa was addressing party supporters at Muchakata Business Centre in Masvingo Central Constituency.

He said his government will make sure that primary education is free and said he will make sure that the new education system is done with the input from teachers since they are the ones involved.

"We will remove Calas which are forcing parents to be in school every day, we need make sure we restore the dignity into our education system and make it the best like before. We cannot impose policies without people's input like they did with Education 5.0. Ours will have the input of headmasters and teachers for they are experts in that field.

He said education for primary level and ‘A' level should be free and parents will only pay up to form four saying the mechanisms for that to happen were already there.

"In Zambia they are saying free education at primary level, if you go to South Africa they don't pay examination fees, it's the responsibility of the examining authority. You can't say you want to have an exam and you say grade seven pay exam fees. No grade seven exam, no form four or ‘A' level exam fees. If people pay fees then that's it,"

"Under our government, parents will only pay from form one to four just to exercise their responsibility, at A level the government should take over, after that loans for tertiary education are then activated said Chamisa.

He said when he gets into power to fix the economy, Zimbabwe will use a basket of currency but mainly USD but for a shorter period before introducing own currency.

"When we get in power, we need to fix the economy, but to do that we need to address the issue of currency. We will use a basket of currency but mainly USD but that will be for a short period. We will then introduce our currency that is stronger than pound, Deutsche M9 ark, yen and yuan. It's possible and what makes the currency stronger is the type of leadership," said Chamisa

On social services he said the registry office would be computerized such that when a child is born it's automatically recorded and all services needed will then be activated.