The Sunday Mail
PRIMARY and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora, who has of late come under fire over controversial policy changes, has launched a media charm offensive, hinting at an ambitious ICT strategy that will see schools across the country connected to a data-sharing network.
Last week, Minister Dokora and senior civil servants invited newspaper editors to his 14th floor Ambassador House offices and laid out a spirited defence of the controversial ministerial interventions. Of particular irritation to the ministry were media reports that teachers without Mathematics, Science or English at ‘O’ Level would be fired. Secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe Mr Raymond Majongwe had been quoted as describing Mr Dokora’s proposals as “overzealous” and “madness”.
Minister Dokora hit back, accusing the media of willfully misrepresenting Government policy, saying there were no plans to fire any teachers but to improve and modernise teaching skills.
Speaking on the matter of skills development, he detailed a database termed Teacher Development Information System (TDIS), which is in the final stages of implementation. The TDIS database will be mined and analysed against an ideal skills data set to identify skills deficiency and devise policy. Government is believed to have already set aside US$2,5 million to fund teachers who want to upgrade their skills. Teachers across the country are understood to have already filled out information necessary for the initial roll-out.
“We cannot keep using the teaching methods that we used before,”
“We need to modernise and equip teachers to lead the movement to a technology based e-economy. As a ministry, we cannot simply leave teachers we know are lacking in this area or the other and do nothing about it.” said Minister Dokora.
Mr Dokora accused teachers of lacking vital ICT skills and unveiled a project partnering with Samsung and Lenovo that will see steel containers converted into state-of-the-art computer drop-in training centres where teachers will go to receive ICT training.
Seventy-four containers have already been purchased by the ministry. The initial phase will see one drop-in centre established in every district.“Although the world is changing and moving towards technology, you find that computing courses are under-subscribed…We have detected that only 1 533 students sat the ZIMSEC Computer Studies exam while the Hexco computer studies package had just 1 000 students,” he explained.
In other planned projects, the ministry will roll out informal education infrastructure using mediums such as the internet to deliver lectures.
