Dr Dokora's radical changes in education not necessary

Dr Lazarus Dokora, the minister of primary and secondary education will go down in history as a government official who introduced controversial policies which elicited the loudest outcry from stakeholders ever since Zimbabwe got independence in 1980.

Some of the policies have dispirited the teachers with the consequences subsequently hitting hard on the innocent learner. Obviously, Dr Dokora unwittingly arms his nemesis who always accuses him of not giving a hoot to the consequences of his policies for he has no child at any Zimbabwean school. He began by banning incentives that the School Development Authorities were giving to their teachers. These incentives which were introduced during the inclusive government had done well in motivating our pedagogues. It will be sad indeed when our teacher entertain nostalgia for David Coltart's era in the ministry. Incentives were introduced when Coltart was the minister of education. As if that was not enough, Dr Dokora also banned extra lessons raising speculation that his policies are anti-teachers.

Recently, the minister directed all schools to conduct enrollment of form one students on the same day on 4 November 2015. The intention of the policy is noble but the way it is being implemented is too emotional. We know parents were being robbed of their hard earned money by schools through entrance tests. The schools were in the habit of inviting thousands of prospective students when they only wanted 200 or less students for each year. The candidates would pay non-refundable entrance fees ranging from $20 to $100. That money was never used for meaningful development.

Indeed that was very bad and the minister had to intervene. However, he had emotionally done so. Minister Dokora should have set at least a week, not a day, for enrolment. This would allow parents to rush to the next school in cases where they are unsuccessful at their first choices. As it is now, the system does not allow this as that next school would have also enrolled on the same day. Some might argue that parents must go where they are certain of securing a place.

Many schools have their traditional cut off points. The schools that are much sought after usually take children with 4 to 6 units. The problem arises when the school is oversubscribed by children with four points. That will mean those with 5 and 6 points will not have a chance. This is a scenario likely to be witnessed this year since there is a general increase of children with four units with one school reportedly having 89 pupils with four units.

This also calls for a relook into the performance ranking. These schools must be assessed against the type of students they enrolled in the first place. Honestly you cannot expect a school that enrolled 200 pupils with four or five units to score a 98% pass rate at Ordinary Level. A child with four units can still pass if he or she spends four years reading on her or his own. That child just needs guidance and everything else falls in place. The performance of such a child at ‘O' level must not be absolutely attributed to the teacher or school.

There are some schools who deny most of their form four students some ‘A' level places in favour of those coming from other schools. This is a very unfair practice where Dr Dokora can justifiably intervene. These schools import quality products from other schools and export to other schools their badly made products. Their end product is not commensurate with the raw products they produce. In other words, schools which enroll pupils with 4 to 6 units must attain a 100% pass rate at O level.

The recent policy on enrollment poses a challenge to schools that had already done their enrollment. The ministry is reportedly directing such schools to reverse the process and use the grade 7 results on 4 November. Unfortunately some schools had already made parents to pay fees. Some parents had already bought uniforms for those schools. It therefore becomes very unfair to the parents. It is reported that the ministry's arguing that the schools had not yet used that money, so it is very possible to refund parents.

Some of these policies should not be introduced abruptly like this. Schools must be allowed flexibility, at least for this year. As parents, we are not very happy with this policy although it was introduced purportedly to safeguard our interests. Most of the parents were happy with the previous arrangement. The ministry did not disseminate sufficiently this information to parents. Most schools were inundated with parents who were seeking places soon after the results were released on Friday. After travelling long distances, parents were turned away and told to return on the 4th of November. Imagine after spending a fortune in travel expenses in these trying times.

A circular to schools is not enough because the major stakeholders in this issue are not in schools. So one wonders who Dr Dokora is really serving with his radical policies. We think he is crying more than the bereaved.