Primary and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora is one minister who has been consistent in causing controversy with ill-thought policies and yet his portfolio is one of the worst in terms of performance.
Zimbabwe’s education sector — once the envy of many on the continent — has over the past few years experienced a sharp fall in standards partly due to the falling economy and poor policy making.
According to government statistics, as of last year 300 000 children were being forced out of school every year due to socioeconomic problems.
The government’s social safety nets now only exist on paper and many orphaned children face the indignity of being excluded from schools, yet Dokora has time to be fiddling with policies.
His latest pet project, the new curriculum that he says would come into force next year has a number of controversial proposals that have nothing to do with dousing the flames engulfing the education sector.
On Thursday, Dokora was at pains to defend his proposal to introduce a policy compelling children to salute the national flag and recite a pledge of patriotism everyday as part of the new curriculum.
Dokora told the National Assembly the “national school pledge for the infant school module, junior and secondary school would instil values of pride to be Zimbabweans”.
He said the pledge would entail children saluting and reciting the words: “Almighty God in whose hands our future lies, I salute the national flag, I commit to honesty and dignity of hard work.”
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He said a longer version of the pledge would be used for junior and secondary schools.
The MPs rightly pointed out that the pledge could offend people from other religions because not all Zimbabweans are Christians.
Dokora said by introducing the school pledge he was emulating the United States, among other countries.
The minister is proposing teaching of life skills that would see secondary school children being encouraged to acquire e-driver’s licences at the age of 16 years.
He also wants school leavers to go for industrial attachment and he does not seem to take into consideration that Zimbabwe’s formal economy is fast disappearing.
The high number of school dropouts is a reflection of the crisis in the education sector and this is what the minister should be dealing with.
Dokora was a deputy minister when David Coltart took over the Education portfolio in 2009 when the economy had reached rock bottom.
Teachers had deserted their jobs and schools were without books and other learning materials.
That dark period still looms large over the country’s education sector as schools continue to produce half-backed graduates.
However, Coltart commendably took the bull by its horns and rallied donors to fund a programme to print textbooks for schools.
Zanu PF tried to soil his image without success. Dokora should have simply taken off from where his predecessor left by coming up with practical solutions to the problems dogging his portfolio.
The policies he speaks passionately about may be necessary, but they certainly should not be his preoccupation at a time the education sector is burning.
Zimbabwe is in danger of losing its status as one of the African countries with the highest literacy rates because of failure to build on the foundation established from early years of independence and the momentum that Coltart created.
Dokora should simply have the right priorities and stop the grandstanding on very sensitive matters.
