The ManicaPost
Nhamoinesu Muchagumisa
WELL done, Morris Mtisi, for your views on issues bedevilling the Zimbabwean Education System (The Manica Post, 4 June 2014). As a teacher and parent I feel obliged to make a further contribution to the debate arising from the banning of holiday lessons, entrance tests and teacher incentives. Your analysis of the situation was frank and penetrating.
Holiday lessons are important as long as the objective behind them is to improve the academic prospects of the students.
And there was nothing wrong if the teachers running the programme earned a little money from it.
When the lessons were banned teachers and parents bemoaned the move, fearing for a phenomenal decline in the pass rate.
Some teachers have already prophesied doom for this year’s O-Level and A-Level candidates.
Teachers are educated people and they have power to influence public opinion.
I am, however, sceptical about the anticipated negative result of the banning of the lessons.
The vacation programme takes only two weeks of the holiday.
What is two weeks compared to 14 weeks of the term? Are our teachers not innovative enough to find ways of compensating for the reduction in the learning time?
A teacher who has a passion for good results will not fail to find a way to get round this problem.
Some of the teachers I have talked to teach in reputable boarding schools where the bottleneck system still exists. These schools enrol pupils who obtain 6 units or better at Grade 7.
These students normally develop into self-reliant learners who do not need as much of the teacher’s attention as those who go to the less prestigious rural day secondary schools.
One wonders why such an intellectually gifted pupil needs holiday lessons.
Holiday lessons are not, of course, totally irrelevant. There are many pupils who need them, but they forego them for economic reasons.
Rural day scholars definitely need holiday lessons, but their parents who struggle to raise fees for the school term cannot afford to pay for holiday lessons.
Only a few privileged rural day students attend holiday lessons, so for the majority of the rural day scholars, the banning of holiday lessons is a non-event.
If Minister Lazarus Dokora were to reverse the ban on holiday lessons, rural parents should beg the relevant ministry to avail funds for the project, to ensure that their children are not disadvantaged.
Are entrance tests relevant? They may be, but I am sure they once were. Back in the 80s and 90s, authorities
running boarding schools were unhappy with the almost illiterate raw materials churned out by our primary schools.
The entirely multiple choice Grade 7 examinations of those years compromised the quality of the Grade 7 graduate.
Primary school teachers were blamed for concentrating more on past examination papers in the last stages of primary school than on developing literacy.
Most boarding schools therefore thought of running their own examinations to make sure that they enrolled the best quality of Grade 7 graduates.
With the advent of the new millennium, Zimsec made significant improvements on the quality of Grade 7 examinations.
Each subject examination now comprises two papers, the multiple choice paper and the written paper to ensure the level of literacy at Grade 7 qualifies the successful Grade 7 candidate even for enrolment in any boarding school.
School authorities need to have confidence in the authority running national examinations.
On the issue of teacher incentives, it is most unfortunate that the poor parent should share with the Government the responsibility to remunerate teachers.
Teacher incentives have compromised the teacher’s status in society. Government should urgently address the issue of the teacher remuneration so that teachers stop crying over the scrapping of incentives.
Some people have taken pleasure in despising teachers because of the parent’s role in teacher remuneration.
Nhamoinesu Muchagumisa writes in his own capacity and specialises in English Language, Religious Studies and History. He can be reached on his mobile number 0777 460 162.
