PRIMARY and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora’s controversial policy changes that have seen some private and public schools, including the Zimbabwe Republic Police High School in Harare, defy his directive to stop holding Form One entrance tests must be resolved amicably.
NEWSDAY EDITORIAL
Dokora recently scrapped the entrance tests, accusing school authorities of charging non-refundable entrance test fees of between $30 and $50 for limited Form One places.
But the fact that the schools have gone ahead in complete defiance of the policy change shows that Dokora is out of touch with reality.
The only explanation could be that Dokora has not taken time to understand the education sector resulting in his weekly policy changes impacting negatively on schoolchildren and teachers.
It is important that Dokora consults the education sector’s technocrats — in fact, he should make use of educationists in the ministry if he is to succeed in taking the ministry to greater heights.
First it was the banning of extra lessons and then entrance tests among a whole host of useless changes in the education sector. One wonders what Dokora wants to achieve by literally destroying the sector which had become the envy of many in the region and internationally.
The minister must understand that in rural areas, the dedicated teachers never charged for the extra lessons that they conducted. It has always been out of sheer determination to improve results. Given the poor state of the economy, those in the countryside could not afford the luxury of parting with an extra dollar, but the teachers only conducted the extra lessons for the love of the profession and good results.
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Education must be a valued part of the Zimbabwean culture. Teachers must be well-paid in the country and must be viewed with great respect. For this to happen, government must intensely support education spending, while parents do their best to ensure that their children have access to the best education opportunities.
How Dokora wants Zimbabwe to be known for a brutally rigid curricula that pushes students or teachers beyond their limits is anybody’s guess.
It is important that government must begin to move away from this system, placing increased emphasis on creativity, internationalism and critical thinking in schools. Dokora must apply soberness in his thinking towards developing the education sector as government still regulates all curricula at every level of the system. Even pre-school has an official curriculum.
Education must be synonymous with competition in the country, especially at the upper levels. Students must feel intense pressure to attend top colleges and universities. So to have a chance at admission they must excel in school from an early age.
This is why teachers advocate for extra lessons for their students. While Dokora is accusing the media of wilfully misrepresenting government policy, saying there are no plans to fire any teachers, but to improve and modernise teaching skills, it is incumbent on him to prove otherwise. It is the traditional approach that has helped Zimbabwean pupils easily outperform their counterparts elsewhere.
While parents must not be fleeced through the entrance tests, the way Dokora is coming up with weekly circulars on policy changes smacks of confusion. Schools must, however, avoid milking hard pressed parents in their quest to feed their greediness by creating chaos in schools. Schools are supposed to enrol Form One pupils on the basis of their Grade Seven results.
