Zimpapers Logo

Mrs Sylvia Utete-Masango

Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
THE country’s new education curriculum comes into effect on Tuesday when the first school term of the year starts.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has since distributed syllabi and teaching materials to districts countrywide to pave way for the changes in the country’s education system.

Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango yesterday said everything was in place for the transformation of the education sector.

She said the new curriculum will be rolled out in phases.

“The material is available, the new curriculum is available, the syllabuses are available, we have already sent the syllabuses to districts so that is under control,” said Dr Utete-Masango.

She said Government will be retraining more than 400 teachers to capacitate them so they can teach Early Childhood Development classes.

“The Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education is ready to skill those teachers. I’m saying that we have primary trained teachers, those who can teach from Grade Three to Grade Seven but we have a shortage at lower levels. Therefore, the retooling or the re-skilling is actually for them to teach even at infant level,” she said.

She said the retraining process will be done at no cost to the teachers.

Dr Utete-Masango said Government was yet to decide on the number of teachers to be recruited as her ministry was still consulting Treasury and Public Service Commission on recruitment.

She said they held meetings with human resources teams in her ministry from all the provinces to outline their vacancies and manpower needs.

“We’re in a meeting with the 10 human resources officers and we’re going through the vacancy situation and trying to see how we’re going to come up with the recruitment plan,” said Utete-Masango.

“If the human resources officer fails to represent their province s/he is not worthy to be in that province that is why they are here so that there is no province that is disadvantaged. Because every province is represented they come representing their province.”

— @nqotshili