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Auxilia Katongomara, Chronicle Reporter
THE Government sent teachers to China for Mass Displays’ training to pioneer the compulsory subject as part of the new curriculum.

Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora said the teachers were selected from the country’s 10 provinces for training on the subject that will be taught from Primary to Secondary School up to Ordinary Level.

“The specific instance of mass displays – let me say this Honourable speaker – in 2012, way ahead of the curriculum reform, the Ministry dispatched some under 35 by age teachers drawn from all the provinces to China.

They spent a good seven to eight months there oriented towards the acquisition of skills in mass displays,” Dr Dokora told Parliament on Wednesday. He said the trained teachers had shown their expertise during the country’s Independence celebrations last year.

“Those of you who watched the displays at the last Independence celebrations last year will appreciate the degree of finesse that was achieved at that display. That is the recognition of the skills that these teachers acquired on their sojourn in China,” the Education Minister said.

“They also decentralised that training to their provinces and districts. It is not as if we are starting at zero; there is a basis therefore to mix that skill from the Chinese specialised training and what our colleges in this country have been producing in terms of physical education and sport teachers.”

Responding to a question from MDC-T Mashonaland West proportional representation MP, Concillia Chinanzvavana on the availability of syllabi in line with the new curriculum, Dr Dokora said soft copies were dispatched to schools before the beginning of the first term.

“I wish to state therefore in categorical terms as follows; that the soft copies of the syllabi were distributed to all school institutions in the period last week of September and the beginning of October”, he said.

—AuxxiliaK.