WHEN Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Dr Lazarus Dokora launched the curriculum review exercise, he made some references to the Cuban model of education.
According to a 2014 report by the World Bank, Cuba has the best education system in Latin American and the Caribbean.
Cuba’s education is ranked among the best in the world, alongside Australia, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand.
Its literacy rate is close to 99 percent.
While Zimbabwe is not a communist state it is not an elitist state either and is working towards achieving an advanced education system on the back of a new curriculum.
The new educational curriculum is already underway in schools and more needs to be done in terms of resource allocation and ensuring that it achieves the noble and empowering goals that it seeks to achieve.
A survey recently carried out by The Patriot revealed that while the new curriculum has been received with much enthusiasm, there are challenges in its implementation.
A glaring challenge has been the shortage of teachers.
“Government has no option but to recruit more teachers, for example by making Agriculture a compulsory subject a teacher who previously had 50 or so students suddenly finds him or herself with 800 students (sic),” said educationist Nyasha Chakanyanyuka.
Clearly Government needs to ‘unfreeze’ teaching posts and deploy more teachers in schools to teach particularly the newly introduced learning areas such as agriculture and physical education.
It is critical that the national budget channels more resources to education.
For instance, Cuba, a country that has enjoyed phenomenal development supported by a vibrant education sector, allocates the highest share of its national budget, 13 percent, to education
The country employees more than 400 000 people in the education sector.
Teacher capacitation must also be emphasised.
This includes the encouragement of progression among the teachers from having diplomas to attaining degrees through scholarships.
The new curriculum calls for an increased use of gadgets and this has placed a financial burden on parents.
Government could engage international partners to support the new curriculum through provision of gadgets such as computers.
The survey by The Patriot revealed that Teachers’ Curriculum Manuals are not readily available.
Presently, teachers are relying on the internet to interpret what the new curriculum wants.
More resources need to be channelled towards building of schools and availing alternative energy like solar in remote areas to enable use of gadgets in areas of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) emphasised in the new curriculum.
“Systems like hot-sitting must be done away with as they are not in sync with the demands of the new curriculum,” Chakanyuka said.
“For all the programmes in the curriculum to be carried out, all the children have to be at school premises in the morning.
“In a hot-sitting set-up to complete the new curriculum time-table, students would have to knock-off at 9pm.”
The Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Paul Mavhima said efforts were underway to increase infrastructure in schools.
“In terms of scheduling with regards to hot-sitting, Government in the immediate-to-long-term is crafting solutions that will not compromise the quality of our education through availing enough infrastructure and other functions in line with the dictates of the new curriculum,” said Mavhima.
Another challenge that must be immediately dealt with is the availability of technological instruments such as computers that are a key component of the new curriculum.
“Technological gadgets feature prominently in the implementation of the new curriculum and viable strategies must be crafted to ensure these become available in a way that does not become a burden to parents,” said Chakanyuka.
Schools like Warren Park High One are still relying on computers that were donated by President Robert Mugabe under the E-Learning Programme.
However, the school which received 10 computers has an enrolment of 1 800 and every class is expected to have at least two ICT classes every week depending on the grade level.
“As Government we will continue to make efforts to ease the burden on schools,” Minister Mavhima.
In Cuba, there is a strict maximum of 25 children per primary-school class, many of which have as few as 20.
In the Latin America country, secondary schools are aiming for only 15 pupils per class compared to Zimbabwe’s 42 per class and in some instances 50 students.
A fewer students per class would allow for optimal learning as the children can easily have a one-on-one interaction with teachers.
In Cuba, there are more than 13 600 teachers working in 425 special schools with ‘mobile teachers’ deployed to homes if children are unable to come to school because of sickness or disability.
These are some of the measures we should be implementing to ensure that no child is left behind, especially as the country has many teachers being churned out from local colleges.
Stakeholders also called for continuous evaluation and monitoring of the curriculum, citing it as critical to the success of the whole programme.
“If the country’s new curriculum is to equip learners with requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes that will make the a highly skilled and productive people, it must be continuously monitored and evaluated,” said another educationist, Goden Nyambuya.
“We are partners in this endeavour and it important that teachers and other stakeholders consult each other to ensure we deliver our best,” he said.
“Stakeholder collaborative efforts of parents, teachers, multi-lateral organisations such as UNICEF and UNESCO, Rural District Councils, urban municipalities and other line ministries is important for it has led the country to boast a literacy rate of more than 90 percent.”
Minister Mavhima said the Ministry was in the process of fixing the challenges.
“In terms of the new curriculum, we realise there are teething problems and as a Ministry we have tasked the Curriculum Development and Technical Unit to do an implementation and evaluation process,” he said.
“Teachers are supposed to highlight the inconsistencies and challenges that they may be experiencing and as a ministry we will address that.”
Government, said Mavhima, was working towards ensuring availability of learning materials.
“For the text books, very soon we will distribute books under the Education Development Fund similar to the one that we did in 2012,” he said.
“The distribution will be done by Government and other partners.
“As for the enrolment of teachers, we are liasing with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Commission so that we are able to recruit more teachers.
“As of now, we are unsure of the total number of teachers we need because the 7 000 teaching posts were catering for Early Childhood Development (ECD).
“As a stop gap measure we are using paraprofessionals who have trained in other disciplines.
“However, we hope to recruit more teachers in the near future because we do not have adequate teachers in high schools.
“For junior school, we have enough; that is Grade Three to Seven.”
Stakeholders called for the continuation of the National School feeding programme which was launched last year to ensure that courses such as Physical Education and Mass Displays which require a lot of energy are a success.
“School feeding programmes will continue and by the second term, we hope we will have more substantial ways to feed our pupils,” said Mavhima.
The core subjects under the new curriculum include visual and performing arts, physical education, mass displays, physical education, mathematics and science, heritage studies, information and communication technology, among other learning areas.