The Sunday Mail
Dr Lazarus Dokora—
WE have come to the end of an action packed 2016, especially for us in the education sector. We need to share with our stakeholders some of our joys and major highlights of the year 2016 as well as possible indicators for 2017.
Generally, the year 2016 was a year of hope and transformation within the framework of the social services cluster under ZimAsset.
Curriculum review
The curriculum framework which presents a new education policy for Zimbabwe that seeks to produce a well-rounded learner enters Phase Two of implementation.
As we have highlighted on different occasions, this new curriculum is premised on five pillars, which are: the legal and regulatory framework, teacher capacity development programme, teacher professional standards, infrastructure development programme and the centre for education research, innovation and development.
Some of the major activities that characterised Phase One (2016) of the curriculum implementation saw the Ministry undertaking the following activities:
Development and printing of school syllabuses for all levels from ECD to ‘A’ Level;
Development of learning materials including textbooks, handbooks and manuals;
Induction of teachers and supervisors into the new curriculum framework, especially those with appropriate classes for 2017;
Training in syllabus interpretation for supervisors and teachers taking the following classes in 2017 – ECD, ECD A, Grade One, Grade Three, Form One, Form Three and Form Five.
School feeding
One of the major highlights of the year was the national school feeding programme. Hitherto school feeding efforts, however, have been intermittent and required more coordination and broad-based participation to ensure sustainability.
Partner support has often been fragmented and concentrated in specific geographical regions, thereby leaving other areas without support. Given the high number of learners in schools, who are well over four million, it became imperative to come up with an effective and sustainable programme to provide at least one ‘wet’ meal for learners at school.
While other school feeding models additionally provide take home rations for learners, the cost-effective approach in Zimbabwe is the feed-at-school model. If this objective is to be fully achieved, there will be need for a school feeding model where food for the learners is sourced from the school and local communities in order to build a sustainable school feeding programme that rests on the shoulders of community action and high productivity levels.
School feeding is an essential tool for the development and growth of children. School feeding has many demonstrable advantages, but it has its greatest impact among learners who receive sufficient nutrition to allow them to concentrate on school tasks while developing into healthy adults.
If stalked by hunger, or unbalanced diets, the impact is similar – poor performance. Food support to learners becomes a strategic investment in education that can make a difference to the future of all the learners and consequently the contribution they can make to their country.
School feeding has been proved to have a positive impact on attendance at school, improved learning outcomes and improved health, fosters gender equity, poverty and hunger reduction, among others.
With our agro-based economy, we have the potential and capacity to implement a viable school feeding programme.
The Ministry would like to give space to local initiatives so that any other foods that are enjoyed in the communities and are nutritious are used to prepare meals for the children.
Among some of the foods that the local communities can provide to schools are:
Indumba (beans)
Amabele (sorghum)
Inyawuthi (millet)
Uphoko (rapoko)
Amagwili (potatoes)
Inyama (meat)
Amacimbi
Peanut butter
While Government will do its part in providing whatever resources it can find, it is important for schools and parents to make their contribution to ensure that your children have one decent meal every afternoon.
There must be very close collaboration for the sake of children. I would like to take this opportunity to call upon the corporate world to give any support. As we all know, the school children are a good market for most products and services produced by the corporate world.
It is my humble belief, for example, that the mobile service providers the world over, would collapse if the young of today were to withhold their support. Ngiqondileyini? (Am I correct?).
I am sure all of us can name a variety of products that would not survive today without the support of our young children. As is said, “Take care of your community and it will take care of you”. (Ukuzalayikuzimbela).There are corporate Memoranda Of Understanding (MOUs) in the offing in this sphere.
School auditing
It is a statutory requirement that schools be audited. As a Ministry, we have been able to audit a number of our schools in all the ten provinces. Almost 4 000 schools have so far been audited against a total of 8 600 schools countrywide.
2017 is likely to see more schools audited. This exercise will ensure that public resources are being managed in an approved, transparent, and accountable way. Ministry insists that every dollar that goes into our schools will be accounted for.
Ultimately, the intention is to improve school governance and accountability and to reduce corruption. This oversight role is in compliance with provisions of the Public Finance Management Act 2010 (No 11/2009) which empowers the Public Service Commission to assist Treasury by appointing internal auditors to any Ministry, or reporting unit of a Ministry.
Objective of audits
The objective of conducting regular audits is to achieve the following:
- To monitor the financial administration and procedures of the Ministry, or reporting unit, to ensure that:
Proper accounting and bookkeeping transactions and procedures are carried out;
Proper accounting records are maintained;
Adequate internal checks and controls are observed;
Assets under the control of the Ministry or reporting unit are properly accounted for;
Instructions and directions issued are complied with, and;
Generally, that the requirements of the Act are being observed.
- To assess the cost-effectiveness of any projects undertaken by the Ministry or reporting unit concerned and,
- To perform any other function that may be assigned by the accounting officer of the Ministry.
It is our sincere hope that these audits will lead to better utilization of the resources that are currently made available to the Ministry.
South African minister’s visit
The Minister of Basic Education of the Republic of South Africa, Honourable Angie Motshega, visited our country on August 15, 2016. I am happy to share with our valued stakeholders that we had a breakthrough in our subsequent deliberations.
I will share with our beloved stakeholders most of the outcomes in the course of 2017. However, high on our agenda were curriculum issues, staff development of personnel in our respective ministries and availing of the Zimsec examinations to Zimbabwean citizens in South Africa.
E-registration
As a Ministry, we introduced e-registration for Form One entry this year, 2016. E-registration has several advantages among which are the following:
It is cost effective in that it reduces travel costs for parents or guardians.
It provides quick response to applicants so as to give enough time for parents or guardians to prepare for the coming year.
It limits corruption as it reduces human interface since registration is done online.
Application is done in the comfort of your home as long as there is internet connection or access to smart phones and tablets or a local information centre.
The online registration allows for the flexibility for those in the local zone to enrol day learners directly within the school catchment of their residential areas. This avenue was always available from the beginning in spite of what you might have read to the contrary. I leave the rest to your better judgement.
Thrust in the new year
With all our hands on the deck, we expect 2017 to be a successful year in the education sector. The curriculum framework enters Phase Two of implementation. The school feeding programme, infrastructure development, school auditing and teacher capacity development will be the hallmarks of the sector.
The support that we have received from Global Partnership in Education and the German Government to the tune of US$20million and US$14 million respectively has boosted our local resources.
Government continues to be the largest funder of our education sector, deploying almost a billion dollars for employment costs in 2017. Central Government’s commitment to education can never be underrated.
I wish to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our stakeholders, particularly our parents, teachers and education partners (Unicef and others) for the support which they have rendered to the schools and learners.
As for the uninformed reportage in some of our media outlets, we trust that our stakeholders are miles ahead of the prattle with the positive developments in our sector.
I wish you productive work ahead and the best in 2017!
Dr Lazarus Dokora is the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail.
