Zimpapers Logo

Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
MATABELELAND South Provincial Education Director, Tumisang Thabela, has blasted schools in the province for failing to prioritise teaching of practical subjects, which she said were key towards equipping pupils with survival skills after school.Speaking during the Mangwe District schools’ merit awards last Tuesday, Thabela also told teachers who are not conversant with the local Kalanga language to learn it quickly.

“The problem we have is that most schools are strict on teaching other subjects while undermining vocational subjects. The reason why schools are producing useless pupils is because they are not getting it right on the curriculum,” said Tumisang.

“Let’s not burden pupils with content which will be irrelevant to them in the future. Children are being taught about Bismarck in history and they learn all these formulas in Mathematics but these are things which they will leave at school and never apply in real life.”
Thabela said teaching vocational subjects was key as they imparted life skills that all pupils should have.

“There are a lot of natural resources in this district. Education should rescue families from poverty but if you look today you will see that families are still stuck in poverty just because their children were being fed with irrelevant content at school,” she said.

“The government has said pupils must be taught in their local language especially Grade Zero up to Grade Three and schools should follow this initiative. If you are a teacher and you’re not conversant with the local language of pupils then you should learn it fast.”

Thabela said children understand better when taught in their mother tongue and revealed that Beitbridge had recorded improved Grade Seven results after schools added Venda to their curriculum.

She said her ministry was running the Performance Lag Address Programme (PLAP) and the Technical Handwriting Reading and Spelling Programme (THRAS), which seeks to improve performance of pupils and urged schools to participate.

Embakwe Primary and Dingumuzi Primary were awarded prizes for being the best in last year’s Grade Seven examinations while Empandeni High was awarded for best O-Level and A-Level results.

Plumtree High came out tops in computer education.