By Brighton Ncube – My Bulawayo News reporter
The new curriculum is set to be adopted on Tuesday when the first term of 2017 commences. This comes at a time when a lot of private colleges have mushroomed milking parents and guardins off their hard earned cash. According to Zimbabwe School Examination Council (ZIMSEC) the ministry of primary and secondary education has allowed many private colleges to operate without proper papers and this has affected the system of education in the country.
According to the Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (TUZ) secretary general” the new school curriculum will be adopted on Tuesday as the first term begins. This sees a lot of private colleges which have been operating in the country close their activities”. explains Ottoman Magaya. In the new curriculum students will be registered and are expected to have course work on most of their studies and failure to that will result in students not getting certificates from the Ministry of Primary and secondary education.
A lot of bogus colleges have been operating in the country, with many students sitting as private candidates and emerging from these unregistered private colleges. The new curriculum has been viewed as a good measure to end all corruption in the education system.
He further went on “We will have continuous assessment on school pupils and evaluation will be carried out throughout various stages and not at Ordinary Level stage alone like before. Pupils will now have course work and the examination mark. So some private owned schools and colleges cannot do this so naturally they are being pushed out if they do not formalise their operations,” he said
The Cabinet approved the draft of the curriculum review in September 2016 clearly pointing out a lot of changes to the country’s learning programme. The new education curriculum focuses on the importance of Science, Technology, Mathematics, Vocational Studies, Humanities and Heritage studies, and these areas would be made compulsory at all levels in the learning process.
Parents have expressed their gratitude to the ministry of Primary and secondary education on such an initiative that would see many private colleges that have milked them for years coming to a close.Speaking to some parents at the Bulawayo city hall who were accompaning their children to different schools expressed a lot of happiness towards this initiative by the government.” I am happy that my son will be part of this new curriculum and it will be his first time at a secondary school and i believe it will shift our education system to another level” expressed one parent.
The first term begins on Tuesday the 10th of January 2017, and many parents have been seen in various shops looking for stationery, while others have been sending off their children to various boarding schools across the country.
