The Sunday Mail
The following is the full text for online, transcript of Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora’s address to the Zimbabwe Heads Of Christian Denominations last Friday in Harare on the curriculum review and National Pledge that pupils will recite at public and mission schools as part of the new curriculum.
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Dr Lazarus Dokora
We could say the introduction is really about the new education policy.
As we attained our Independence in 1980, the President, Cde Robert Mugabe, collapsed the various forms of discrimination in the education sector.
All schools were one. People wanted to go to into those schools they had been excluded from. So what was borne at the time was a policy in education which was in wrinkles up to today.
Chikoro hachizare, a school never fills up: that policy was borne out of the reality of 1980 when kids were being bussed from Highfield coming into town, into the suburban schools.
Whose child were you going to say, “Look, the school is full”? You couldn’t say that.
So the solution was simply to say, since the school never gets filled up what is filling up is a stream. So you needed to create a second stream. If that fills up create a third stream.
So you have a situation in urban areas that we did not create new schools as part of that evolution. We simply created what we called the mega schools.
But in the rural areas government said those that were disadvantaged during the war can come back to school. And if you put up your four walls, Government will put a roof and door frames and so on.
So you had actual expansion in rural areas but no expansion in urban areas. We simply increased the enrolment and that remained the case right through to the early ‘90s.
Then the President began to speak at the turn of ‘90s to say, “Yes, we collapsed all this discrimination, but what is it that we are teaching? What is it that we are moulding these kids into becoming?”
You will recall that in 1995 he spoke at length in Parliament saying we must have a new curriculum. “Who are we as a people? We say we are Zimbabweans. What is at the core of our Zimbabweanhood? Ubuntu.”
Education must restore these values in the system.
And three years later in 1998 he appointed a Commission of Enquiry into Education Training and asked Professor Dziramasanga to chair and the nation knows that Nziramasanga reported in 1999.
Some of the recommendations he made included, for instance, the need for a philosophy for education. Without a philosophy for education we can change the best minds, but they will not be anchored on any platform.
In other words you go to, who are we as people and what is the role of education in cementing us together as a people?
Nziramasanga’s Commission also bemoaned the absence of ICTs.
They recommended second-hand computers and it was a realistic recommendation because computers were still expensive. Today the computer is (more accessible).
When we then looked at implemetantion of the Nziramasanga Commission Report, we found ourselves in a very difficult spot.
First there is what he said about (Early Childhood Development), that ECD is so fundamental in the life of every learner that we ignore it at our own peril as a nation.
And he gave examples everywhere, Cuba, Brazil, Australia, Britain nobody ignores ECD.
In 2004 we issued a circular from the ministry and we said attach an ECD to every primary school for five-year-olds.
And in your minds as parents you said to yourselves, “What value does this bring? Zero.” So you called them Grade Zero.
In our system we don’t call them Grade Zero because there is a whole educational undertaking about ECD: Get them organised, self-management, learning how to relate at an early age, learning to build bridges, appreciating that they are in a community.
Those who went to ECD behave very differently for the rest of their lives.
Then we looked at Agriculture in the Nziramasanga Report. We issued another circular in 2010 to say teach agriculture in all primary schools but again (nothing was done by the schools).
Agriculture is not being examined. What are being examined are Maths, Content, English Language and Indigenous Languages.
They (teachers) use the (Agriculture) lesson for administrative things because they don’t see a connection between the examination system and this new area they were being asked to teach; because our education system is for examination breeders.
Can we be a nation that simply wants to attend to examinations?
So those were some of the challenges that we had to do with and we said it’s better to go back to Cabinet to do a curriculum review, which we did in October 2014.
We created a national point, a permanent spot for anyone who wanted to drop in and contribute ideas. We also created avenues in the public and private media. We saw lots of debate in the media.
We did radio talk shows and we asked Mai Chisamba to host us.
Then we appointed a team of six experts to begin the process of sifting through the contributions. We asked these teams leaders to go into the Curriculum Development Centre and be locked away 24 hours a day.
They produced the first draft, which they called the Zero Draft.
We took it to provincial centres to say now how do we mainstream values and what constitutes our values, where is the Godliness in our values? We also met with Apostolic churches, and they gave us their input.
The new curriculum was approved by Cabinet as indicated in September last year.
We said to Cabinet there are five areas we must continue to be interested in as we implement, and one is the legal regulatory framework.
I spoke about the circulars and how they were misunderstood by school heads and how it lead to parents misunderstanding what ECD was about.
We need to get buy-in at all levels down to the grassroots to ensure there is clarity, that they understand clearly what their mission is and what that circular is leading them through.
There is a 1943 circular which says “thou shalt not harbour profit in school projects”. It’s still in there but it’s dysfunctional; so these are some of the learning areas you say “ah this is no longer viable or relevant”.
Of course the areas of levies comes in for regulatory scrutiny. Who is responsible for what? We demonstrated that in the last few weeks.
There were headlines claiming all kinds of sins which I’m supposed to have committed by simply talking about SDC levies. I didn’t reply.
You see we can do better. With the level of education of our people, we can do better.
Why would a school buy a bus for US$150 000 yet they know the cost is US$83 000? Then you take the change and put it in a private account. And you want me to do nothing? It will not happen.
For every action you take in those school institutions, there will be a corresponding reaction to sanitise the area.
It must be agreed that parents are going through very difficult times. So we need accountability.
And unfortunately some of the people we find in these areas include reverends and church people, hmmm … these things are stage managed – tenders are awarded and so on.
It’s only the beginning.
Then there is teacher capacity development. His Excellency in 2014 launched a teacher capacity building facility where we took on board about 3 000 teachers who at that time foresaw the direction in which the new curriculum was taking.
So we said we needed a set of skills among our teachers, a set of skills in the sciences, a set of skills in the heritage area, a set of skills in management area.
The teacher pays for registration and Government picks up the bill for the payments to university as teachers upgrade themselves from being diploma holders to degree holders and then master’s degree holders.
We are committing also to taking on board about eight doctorable students on an annual basis.
So capacity development is an on-going accompaniment of the new guidelines.
You will agree with me that teacher professional standards are absolutely critical. We have plus or minus 130 000-135 000 teaches in the system.
There is no way we can have one inspector to supervise each teacher daily.
No. They have to be self-guided by acquired professionalism. They have to be self-guided on certain ethical foundations.
So again we go back to those ethical foundations of our Ubuntuism in the education system. These are some of the anchoring values that we are looking for.
We want a Teaching Profession Council then ultimately an institute that will be the legal entity which upholds these values and nobody will be employed to teach in this country without a written membership of that Teaching Profession Council.
This should be so that if you go to South Africa or Botswana or Britain, they will write to us and say, “Is this person on the register of your Teaching Professional Council?”
If you are not you will not get anywhere near children. It is time to tighten up that area and allow the sector to evolve into a profession.
There is the Law Society of Zimbabwe. If you are not on the register of the Law Society of Zimbabwe then you are on your own. You won’t practice law.
If they remove you for some misdemeanour to come back on to that register, you know how difficult it is so you behave.
The same thing with doctors. You can have an excellent medical degree but unless you are a member of the health professionals body you will not set up a surgery, you will not practice your medicine.
On infrastructure development, we have said we must put a joint venture of partnerships.
I know the teachers associations were very suspicious at the beginning. They thought I was selling out to the capitalists but, no, we are very careful whom we partner.
We are looking at interest rates of somewhere below five percent, interest of two percent or 1,5 percent and a moratorium, maybe 3-5 years, and then 20 or 25 years just like you do with a mortgage.
So the repayment is very small because I want the modern infrastructure now so we can deliver quality education to our people.
There have been expressions of interest from over 40 companies so we are trying to work out the technical arrangement so we can begin to sign the contracts.
And you know some of the problems I have (with people who don’t want schools to teach indigenous languages).
This time it’s not from the cult of racism; this time it’s because of my own people as well because there are lot of experts. Those who understand how building blocks of values are constructed will tell you the close link between the mother tongue and what children become.
If they miss out on their indigenous languages we have lost heritage.
There are also visual and performing arts; theatre and drama. I asked the ministry to develop support structures for animation using film as a medium to excite children, so a lot things can be done in that area.
We no longer have a prescriptive rule that says you shall teach music even where there is no music teacher.
Physical Education is a given. Then Mathematics and Science, we are starting early again.
Every Zimbabwean kid when they get to Form Four, they are fighting with Mathematics. Where is this phobia coming from? It was coming right from the very beginning.
We said let’s introduce Maths at infant level.
Then of course we have Family and Heritage Studies as a value system. We have said let’s begin to relook the family itself. You tell me an African family is called an extended family, so where is the family? Try to go overseas to find a family.
Nucleus family ndofamily chaiyo, baba namai nevana? Imi ndozvatakura thichiita izvozvo. Ukagara nambuya ifamily yako, ukagara nasekuru ifamily yako.
This is what we becoming? Strangers to ourselves? Education has a function to values, to provide a second anchoring to values, providing a structure that can help the child define himself.
Then Heritage is part of our being, embedded in history. We will be teaching the Constitution. We don’t want to be colonised by NGOs, let’s teach it to our kids.
Haungangoti ndiri kuda marights chete. You must balance rights and responsibilities. And those things must not be politicised.
Then we grow a new generation that thinks positively about itself, about their country and about their communities.
The last part is ICTs.
We now introduce foreign languages alongside English; we look as far as Chinese, French, German and Portuguese.
We are also encouraging schools to do language exchange. In Nyanga they are teaching Ndebele to infants, in Mashonalnd Central they are teaching Ndebele as well. And you facilitate the exchange of teachers and so on.
So 2016 is a year of preparation and piloting. New syllabi are being developed.
We expect in June that Agriculture at Grade 7 will be pilot tested by Zimsec in a few sections and we will study the outcome.
At Zimsec we have developed a comprehensive, continuous assessment framework.
Next year all ECDs in private hands will go on the new curriculum, they will start on the new platform. Then ECD A will go on a new platform, Grade 1, Form1 and Form 3 and Form 5.
You will find in the same school some clusters will be on the new platform while others are still on the old. So the new curriculum will travel a bit with the old curriculum side-by-side.
Then of course in 2018 those that where in ECD A will be on ECD B, continuing with the new curriculum
In 2021 you will see that the Grade 3s of next year will write their first junior school examination, it will no longer be called Grade 7 so you are hearing news of the future.
I want to end with performance markers and zero in on the Pledge.
We now have an expansion of the preamble and then modify it to ensure that it speaks to young people.
The expectation is that as the little ones come in they put their little hands on their hearts, this is very important; signifying that there is someone in charge of our lives and that someone is the Almighty God.
Then they move their hands to now actually acknowledge the flag in front of them and they say “I salute the national flag”, and then they put their little hands on the side.
And so we teach kids to remember that day-by-day they are committed to being honest, to work hard.
So as we go for the second term, you will also go with your children – that’s what you do always when the term starts. If you were not doing that you were breaking the law. Education policy says move with your child; either baba or mai.
On consultation day we expect that you come to school.
Pane zvimwe zviri kuitwa nemachurches, mune zvenyuwo zvamunoita zvihombe … anointed soil, huyai mutenga anointed soil kuti muve neincrease yakanaka.
When you chew this snake, it will convert to chocolate – makazviona zvichiitika pa maTV but handizivi kuti zviri kuitika kuSouth Africa chete here. Toziva kune vamwe vanoti kune ma anointed pens, US$10 apiece, ko chaa chiizve?
Zimsec examination rinoda kunyorwa nemwana akazvichenjerera, akaita massignements akadii, wongoona kuti paita business. Nemateacher abva apinzwawo ipapo.
But muri kushandisa chitendero chemwana kuti anosolver problem. Ini handicharava ndikatenga anointed pen. Kuona kuti raiva business unofanira unoona voti unotenga anointed pen one, one paper.
Apoka, ibusiness kairi.
So ndakazobudamo ndikati handiti muri kunzwa nyaya iyi, aiwa udzanai pachenyu. Vana ngavadzidze kushanda nesimba. Shuwa ungarege kuverenga woti pen ndoyandakukupa haudaro?
The kind of sadism, zvichiri zvaMwari here zvatakuita?
Imwe yandakasangana kuchikoro chimwe, head akati, “Munoda nzvimbo yeECD? Horaita pno panoita US$40, but munonetsa imi vabereki. Chibvai mabhadhara neyenext term. US$40 fakala. Asi vana venyu vanonetsa. Hunzai matissue, Harpic, chimwe chii? Tinoda macounter book maviri, one red ball point, one blue point pen.”
So you count those things cumulatively, moti maida here kuti vana vapinde pachikoro chenyu?
You are Zimbabweans. You must understand the value of education.
These are some of the challenges I have been facing. That is why I took the unprecedented decision towards investigation and we now go district by district.
Transcribed by The Sunday Mail Religious Affairs Editor Fatima Bulla
