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Minister Lazarus Dokora

When the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Lazarus Dokora unveiled the new Education curriculum in January this year, there was a backlash from different sections of the Zimbabwean society. Most of those that criticised the new curriculum had not even bothered to get details of what it entailed and as such were arguing from a point of ignorance.

The others argued that Government did not have adequate resources to implement the new curriculum while others were saying the teachers did not have the requisite skills. Many Parliamentarians also had their own reservations. Dr Dokora, however, went ahead to implement the new curriculum despite the stiff resistance.

Cabinet ratified the changes to the school curriculum in September 2016 and its implementation started this year. Dr Dokora was not inventing a new wheel when he decided to implement the new curriculum because what he is implementing is a product of the Nziramasanga Commission of Inquiry which had made recommendations that were, however, not implemented.

Minister Dokora said the Presidential commission on education and training which was set up by President Mugabe in 1998 and led by Dr Cephus Nziramasanga, revealed that the country’s education curriculum had outlived its purposefulness.

It was against this background that Cabinet approved the new curriculum and Dr Dokora’s task is to implement it as he is already doing. The President, Cde Mugabe, on Wednesday hailed the new curriculum saying it fosters entrepreneurship and opens up opportunities for Zimbabweans to be skilful and innovative. Cde Mugabe who was opening the 3rd Education Conference and Expo 2017, said the new curriculum will shed off the employee mentality among students.

He said the issue of sustainability is embedded in the new curriculum which fosters entrepreneurship. President Mugabe said entrepreneurship education and training is meant to inculcate value of ubuntu/hunhu, skills and appropriate motivation and to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings. He said the nation wants an education system that produces skilled entrepreneurs who create jobs for themselves as opposed to seeking employment.

President Mugabe said such skills encompass problem-solving, leadership, communication and teamwork as well as technological skills. Cde Mugabe said today’s environmental problems pose a challenge to today’s education, hence the need to find ways of making education sustainable, the need to teach differently to address today’s problems and the need to transform schools and 21st century learning.

The President said teachers were key in any curriculum innovation hence the need to capacitate them through the provision of teaching materials of the new curriculum. The implementation of the new curriculum, it has to be appreciated, has its own teething problems.

What quickly comes to mind is the shortage of resources given that producing skilled graduates need additional resources at all levels of education. What is encouraging is that the leadership, as stated by Cde Mugabe, is seized with this challenge.

Schools need to be capacitated in terms of additional learning equipment and other materials to enable them to effectively implement the new curriculum. The new system obviously has its own shortcomings apart from the issue of shortage of resources and it is therefore incumbent upon all stakeholders to play their role in perfecting the system. There is a need for continuous assessment of the curriculum in order to address any shortcomings.