The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
GOVERNMENT has directed primary and secondary schools to establish non-formal education curricula to absorb more than one million teenagers and young adults who are out of school for various reasons. The directive is meant to widen access to education for those who drop out of school owing to early marriage or failure to pay school fees among other challenges.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora told The Sunday Mail that Government had hired a consultant to undertake a national assessment on children not in school.
“In 2015, Government engaged a consultant to undertake a national assessment of out of school children. The survey showed that 1 234 642 children were out of school,” he said.
Dr Dokora said as part of addressing the challenge of children who are out of school, the ministry launched non-formal education policy.
“So among other things the policy directs each primary and secondary school to open up non-formal education class on its premises,” said Dr Dokora.
He said opening non-formal education classes at all schools was in line with Section 75 of Zimbabwe’s Constitution, which states that every citizen has a right to education, the Education Act (Chapter 25:04 of 1978) as amended in May 2006, and Statutory Instrument 371 of 1998.
Dr Dokora said non-formal education would offer adult literacy, the Zimbabwe Adult Basic Education Course, functional literacy, open and distance learning and Part-Time and Continuing Education (PTCE).
“These first four programs pertain to primary education while the PTCE is a secondary school course,” said the minister. “At our last count there were 4 340 centres offering non-formal education with an enrolment of 145 044 learners disaggregated into 61 510 males and 83 534 females.”
Statistics show that in 2014, nearly 50 000 forms four and six pupils either failed to register for public examinations or dropped out of school.
Despite financial difficulties facing the education sector, Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa.
