Understanding the curriculum review framework

18 Oct, 2015 - 00:10 0 Views
Understanding the curriculum review framework Minister Dokora

The Sunday Mail

Dr Lazarus Dokora
Unpacking the new curriculum is like beginning a journey that has roots in the history of the education of our country. The role of education as an agent and instrument of ideological, socio-economic transformation in a nation is not a new phenomenon and can be noted in the various commissions that were set up during the colonial period.
These step-by-step reforms before independence facilitated key changes that European settlers used to advance their settler and colonial agenda, producing individuals among natives who could serve the settler interests better.
Simultaneously, the changes affirmed the superiority of the Europeans as the skill sets were different from those provided for indigenous Africans.
The checkered history of colonial education has been ably summed up in one of the editions of The Patriot newspaper issue of October 9-15, 2015.
Zimbabwe at Independence in 1980 inherited an education system which was elitist, fraught with inequalities, a legacy of discrimination and carved along racial lines.
The European settlers were very clear from the outset, though, as to what kind of education was provided for the natives.
As early as 1909, some of the impulses of European education were found in their order in the council of the settlers.
In 1929, the colonial regime set up the Frank Tate Commission that reviewed only the European education.
Key features of the review outcomes related to the compulsory nature of education for white children.
In fact, it is common cause that as early as 1923 with assumption of self-governing entity, more racial inequalities were perpetrated.
The Fox Commission in1935 overly went out of its way and opposed mere academic secondary curriculum with less practical skills for European children and recommended a secondary with more than one track of learning.
The European settlers continued with their restrictive measures for the African, especially in the Dr Alexander Kerr Commission of 1952 that barred the African Child from being trained as a craftsman in any skilled trades so that whites remained masters and the indigenous Africans remaining servants with rudimentary skills for serving the master.
Even if an African received high quality education in other countries, they created measures to ensure that it was not recognised for employment purposes.
Although the Kerr Commission recognised the need for compulsory education in all areas for all citizens, the same report warned against decentralisation of education or even experimenting on the policy, citing the organisational nature of the country’s communities, need for capacity building and the levels of administrative know-how and experience as hurdles to effective decentralisation.
The Judges Commission of 1962 came with some re-examination and assessment of State, Aided and Church schools curricular and the allocation and distribution of resources.
The report also examined the role and place of the central and local governments in financing education.
Noting the existence of bottleneck policy affecting the African child, the commission recommended seven years of primary education.
The Commission also recommended vocational technical education, but the colonial regime subsequently then streamed African learners into two spaces: F1 for academic stream and F2 for non-academic stream.
The F1 and F2 duality in the education system in which some students pursued academic studies while others enrolled at schools where they acquired practical skills in building, carpentry, animal husbandry, crop production and other activities was introduced but the Europeans developed highly financed and equipped comprehensive secondary schools for white children.
This two-tier education system was abandoned soon after independence from British rule in 1980 so that all learners would receive a common curricular.
Unfortunately, the provisions of this commission that favoured black Africans was never implemented.
This resulted in an emphasis on academic education in African schools at the expense of practical and technical and vocational skills.
In spite of all the commissions set up during the colonial era, a lot of ills continued to haunt the African learner.
In summary, education in the pre-Independence period was strictly divided on racial grounds.
White children went to government-provided schools for whites, Asian and mixed race “coloured” children were lumped together in different schools, and Africans attended schools for Africans.
Government built some schools for Africans and encouraged missions to develop teacher-training institutions.
Some of the early schools included Hope Fountain (Tennyson Hlabangana High School) in 1915, St Augustine Mission (1935), Goromonzi (1945) and Fletcher (1957).
Some missions were permitted to develop secondary schools to provide the basis for trained teachers, nurses and clerical staff for offices.
By the late 1960s, a dual system of secondary schools had been firmly entrenched, with some high achievers being streamed to academic schools leading to Ordinary Level and the less able being channelled to schools which provided vocational training.
The numbers proceeding to secondary schools increased as more schools were built, but the transition rate to secondary school was marginally 12,5 percent.
Meanwhile, schooling for white children was compulsory and fully State funded.
Boarding schools catered for children growing up in isolated communities, farms and mines.
Secondary schools were also streamed by ability into academic and commercial and special technical schools were established for those technically inclined.
As government schools were racially integrated by legislation in 1978, “community schools” were allowed to establish fee levels.
Unfortunately, these were highly priced for the marginal majority to afford.
The advancement of any country is highly interlocked with its levels of education and skills of its people.
At independence in 1980, the Government of the then Prime Minister, HE Cde RG Mugabe, adopted policies that regarded and enhanced education as a basic need and a fundamental human right.
This called for massive expansion.
Next week, I shall attempt to provide further handles along this journey to the present.
Suffice to leave the reader with the following citation from President Mugabe at the assumption of the Independence in 1980:
“. . . indeed, let’s enjoy the whole of our nation to march in perfect unison from year to year and decade to decade towards its destiny.
“We have abundant minerals, agriculture and human resources to exploit and develop for which we need perfect peace.
“. . . The mineral resources lying beneath the surface of our country had hardly been scratched, nor have our agriculture and industrial resources yet fully harnessed . . .
“We already have sophisticated infrastructure.
Our expertise is bound to increase as more and more educational and technical institutions are established to transform our skilled manpower.”

◆ Dr Lazarus Dokora is the Primary and Secondary Education Minister, and wrote this article for The Sunday Mail. This is the first part of a series of articles in which the Hon Minister will unpack the curriculum review framework.

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