PRIMARY and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora was last week grilled in Parliament over his plans for industrial attachment of school leavers with some senators suggesting the move was tantamount to child labour.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Dokara recently announced that ‘O’ Level school leavers would go on industrial attachment before proceeding to ‘A’ Level or tertiary institutions as part of a cocktail of reforms for the education sector.
However, Senators felt that the proposed reforms were not well thought out.
Matabeleland South Senator Sithembile Mlotshwa sparked the debate when she said government was compelled to take legislative and other measures to protect children from exploitative labour practices.
Dokora said the proposal was made by consensus during public hearings where people preferred that children should also acquire such skills.
“As we were conducting public hearings during our investigations, over 961 000 people freely gave their opinions about what they want to see happen in the education sector at the level of primary and secondary education,” Dokora said.
“We did not get, not once, a contribution that says, ‘let my child not use their hands’.”
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The minister said development of such a programme started last October in a bid to enhance the education system
“That programme was looked into by our experts and we now have the final or zero draft, which is the last document that we are using as regards primary and secondary education in this country,” he said.
Dokora said from the various ideas that were submitted, the ministry came up with what they called a zero draft.
