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THE mere mention of the name LAZARUS DOKORA is enough to trigger a passionate all-night debate among parents, school teachers and pupils. But Zimbabwe’s Education Minister — who cannot be accused of lacking passion — is mildly bemused by all the controversy that seems to follow him, as our Senior Reporter PAMELA SHUMBA found out:

SHUMBA: You’re currently on a countrywide tour presenting the curriculum review. Why is this important for Zimbabwe at this time?

DOKORA: The government’s thrust directly points my ministry to produce a curriculum that is relevant and that will lead to the socio-economic transformation of this nation. This is also clearly indicated in the country’s economic blue print, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset).

Over the years, it has become imperative to change our education curriculum. In the light of where our economy is today and where we want to be tomorrow, we began the process of reviewing the curriculum in October last year. We started bidding the nation and our stakeholders to come forth and share their ideas, anxieties and hopes with us.

In order to usher in that consultative period, we had to make our argument in Cabinet. Altogether, about 961,000 people participated in the consultative meetings. We have since done the framework for the education blueprint, which we have called the “Zero Draft” and it speaks to the expectant values and it talks about inclusivity, diversity, identity and accepting who we are as Zimbabweans.

We also draw attention to the need for the education system to be permeated by the conceptual and the philosophical underpinning of unhu/ubuntu. After these consultations, we’ll then ask the team leaders to finally do touch up to the document before it’s presented to Cabinet.

SHUMBA: What are the key issues identified by the review and the reforms we should expect to flow from there?

DOKORA: When you look at the nature and history of examinations at O’ Level, it’s configured to cream off the intellectually astute learner. The bulk of the children, although potentially skilled, cannot fit into the same narrow grid of academic excellence.

The current curriculum is entirely academic and therefore by nature it kills the possibility of an avenue for technical and vocational pathway. The system itself appears unsure whether to go fully towards embracing a practical and technical route. There is a lot of commercial and some science but not much in-between.

The new one, which is at its implementation stage, identifies potential in every child. It provides for all ability ranges and secondly it offers a diversified curriculum and you find practical and technical vocational subjects such as woodwork, metalwork etc from primary level.

As the ministry, we design the syllabus for the privately-run outfits because we want educationally sound activities that will not be in conflict with the formal school system and we monitor and supervise.

SHUMBA: A major complaint from parents, especially in Matabelelend, is that teachers can’t speak the pupils’ mother tongue leading to high rates of failure at primary school level. Do you agree that if the language of instruction at primary school is the mother tongue,it would help pupils grasp concepts better?

DOKORA: That is one of the issues that are already being addressed through the teacher capacity development. We have over 220 teachers learning Nambya, Venda, Tonga, Shangani and in the next intake we’ll take more teachers to do sign language and so on.

It’s an ongoing capacity development programme. I cant’t stop teaching because I don’t have those teachers, but we’re doing something. We don’t want to suppress diversity. The new curriculum actually embraces diversity. It’s one of the strengths that it has.

I have spoken about the issue of language on several platforms. We are not here to rank or order languages. Each language, as stated by the country’s constitution, is equally important.

SHUMBA: You’ve invested quite a lot of time on minority languages to ensure that they’re not only taught but also tested. Why is this to the government?

DOKORA: Our constitution speaks of 16 official languages including sign language. It’s important for the new curriculum to embrace all these languages.

SHUMBA: We realise that we have a shortage of qualified teachers yet the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) says the government has made it very difficult for teachers who left during the hyper inflationary years to return to work. Are there any plans to make this re-integration easier than it is, presently?

DOKORA: Remember my ministry is not the employer. I’m very particular. I want qualified teachers deployed in my system but they must meet the employment conditions of the employer.

It’s up to the employer, not the ministry, to decide whether to employ those teachers or not. Now they want to push a kind of rights approach but when they left the system without ceremony what happened to the kids? Did they even think about them?

These are peripheral issues. Now when we’re finalising this document, I’ll ask the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, which trains the teachers, to provide me with the skills that tally with the new curriculum. Then we expect delivery of those skills and my work would be to supervise the ongoing implementation.

SHUMBA: Please put it in perspective how President Mugabe’s early post-independence policies laid the foundation for Zimbabwe today to be credited as having the highest literacy rate in Africa. What did we do right?

DOKORA: In 1980, the then Prime Minister Cde Robert Mugabe made a call for the country to treat education as a human right, saying let’s expand the provision for education.

The curriculum we’re working on today is being tabled from a position of strength. In 1983 and 1984, President Mugabe began to speak of the need to ensure that the curriculum produced the kind of citizen who could steer the country towards socio-economic development for our nation.

He emphasised on the importance of incorporating both young people and adults, particularly those who had been disadvantaged by the war.

The war came into the expanded education system and President Mugabe began to draw attention to the need to have specific outcomes to the education system.

By the 1990s, at every official opening of Parliament, his calls were more strident to say have we qualitatively transformed our education system? This became a clarion call by the President, leading to the establishment of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on Education and Training or the CIET in 1998. It worked throughout that year and a better part of 1999.

The President continued to draw attention to say now we have the Nziramasanga Commission report, why are we not implementing it? There are two things that were flagged as to why implementation remained hesitant. One of them was funding. It needed huge amounts of budgetary support. As the report was recommended in 1999, by 2000 the economic sanctions had already set in, creating a constrict space for budgetary inflows to the education sector.

And then there were those in the system who dragged their feet although there were recommendations that did not require a large infusion of money, for instance teaching logical thinking through indoor games such as chess.

Prior to independence, we have this well-told story of a restrictive, selective and pyramidal structure to our system. If you want to understand even fuller what the colonial state formation intended to produce out of the African population, you’ll have to look at the Judge’s Commission report of 1962, where they were very clear in their minds that they intended to produce a native product from the education system, which was then called the selective education department. This produced a native who could serve the interests of the European settler community. At the same time, the European child was being molded to occupy a flexible space, which constituted the governing class. Flexible, managerial skills were intended outcomes out of the European education system.

SHUMBA: Is it true that our investment in new schools, science laboratories and education has since slowed? What’s the present state of our education, especially with regards to the shortage of schools?

DOKORA: We are already in discussion with the Iranians to develop science kits for the primary schools. We have already deployed science kits in the secondary schools but we want to develop science kits also in the primary schools.

We have also decided to introduce a levy on school suppliers so that we develop infrastructure. Various services providers supply schools with stationary, computers, sports equipment, science and technological equipment among other equipment and at the moment they aren’t paying anything to the ministry. They just come to the schools get their money and walk away.

This levy, which will be introduced this month, will contribute towards the construction of 2,000 new schools that we are planning to build in line with the new curriculum.

SHUMBA: Your time as education minister has not been without controversies. Before we look at some of them, I wonder if you would like to address a common complaint by headmasters, especially, that you don’t consult them before making key policy pronouncements.

DOKORA: I’m not aware of the complaints.

SHUMBA: A major flashpoint has been the decision to scrap teachers’ incentives. Teachers say the decision, coupled with their poor remuneration was insensitive to their plight. What’s your defence?

DOKORA: I don’t have to give a defence.

SHUMBA: You informed schools that weekends are for pupils to rest, that sporting activities and trips should be accommodated between Monday and Friday. What informs this thinking?

DOKORA: In the new curriculum for primary school, we have collapsed a lot of disciplines. If it was congested and more time was needed, we’re not going to have congestion now.

We must distinguish between teachers and those who are helping us in the system. Helpers are those people who have no pedagogy. A teacher with pedagogy, who we call the teacher, knows that this body of work is envisaged to be completed in the 13 weeks of the term and then they work at it, they do a scheme, a series of lesson plans and they’ve also been trained that from college, how to manage different ability ranges in the same class.

There is a lot of joy in kids breaking off to go on holiday. They only have to do their homework and then the parents assist. The development of bonding between the child and the parent or guardian is a fundamental issue in the new curriculum.

There’s no way a school can banish a school holiday from a child. That is wrong because it simply means our curriculum should not have a holiday and that’s not educationally sound the world over.

Sadly, you find parents who think they’re helping their children by going all kinds of lengths and hiring private tutors and so on.

Some of the things that happen there may not necessarily complement a child’s education. We want to follow a very clear path that constitutes a wholesome experience for the child.

SHUMBA: You have been criticised for suggesting that schools should allow cellphones. Headmasters say this will cause untold disruption to the learning process. How do you see it working?

DOKORA: Draw a distinction between a smart phone and a laptop.

SHUMBA: One other issue that has put you at loggerheads with your constituency is condoms in schools. Why do you support this? Are you not giving pupils ideas?

DOKORA: I actually don’t want condoms in schools and I don’t know where that accusation is coming from.

SHUMBA: We have schools around the country recording zero percent pass rates. What support is being given to those schools to lift them out of this hopeless situation?

DOKORA: The new curriculum will address this challenge and I’m glad we’re in the implementation stage. Such children might be good in technical and vocational skills and they’re not being tested in those areas. We were more focused on the intellectual areas.

SHUMBA: It’s been recently suggested Grade 7 pupils will pay examination fees. Is this true and if it is, does it not really strike at the heart of our education system?

DOKORA: This is linked to the teachers who mark the examinations. It is not a secret that Treasury is constrained in terms of providing funding yet the teachers need to be paid.

We introduced e-marking and we’re now using electronic gadgets. It’s my understanding that we must pay teachers their dues. I’m 100 percent sure that we all agree that we have an obligation to pay the teachers. For that reason to add $1 per child per term is not asking too much.

SHUMBA: Examination fees for O’ Level and A’ Level are also up when the RBZ and the government are telling everyone to lower prices. Does this not trouble you?

DOKORA: They have not gone up. We must understand certain things. We held examination fees at the same rate for three years. At O-Level they remained at $13 per subject and $26 per subject at A-Level.

You’ll be the first to agree with me that over the years there have been breaches of security. Some took place at particular school sites. This is what necessitated the need for the extra $2, which is also not too much to ask.

We have established a printing press in Norton and the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) will control the whole process. We’ll have two forms of guards, the physical body and the electronic surveillance. Any movement is reported to a monitoring site for the three months of the examination period.

SHUMBA: You’re the face of education in our country. Can you say here, now, if your children are attending local schools?

DOKORA: Yes. One was actually a head girl at a council school but there’s something called privacy and family space. My children deserve their own individualities.