The Sunday News
Michael Magoronga, Midlands Correspondent
THE Government is working on a new model to re-introduce continuous assessment in secondary schools as part of the few adjustments that will be made to the primary and secondary education curriculum following consultations carried out to review the document.
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education suspended the continuous assessment regime for this year’s examination classes for Ordinary and Advanced Level after an outcry from parents and teachers.
Under the regime, O-level and A-level pupils were expected to be graded on the basis of combined marks for continuous assessment and final examinations in keeping with provisions of the updated education curriculum.
Pupils were supposed to be graded based on 40 percent theoretical examinations, 30 percent practical examinations and 30 percent continuous assessment.
In a speech read on her behalf during the English and Foreign Languages Teachers Convention in Kwekwe yesterday by acting director for Secondary Education Dr Tonex Doba, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango said continuous assessment will be re-introduced in a more favourabe way although she did not elaborate on timelines.
“Continuous assessment for the 2018 examinations was suspended until further notice. The ministry is working on modalities to reintroduce the concept in a more favourable way and we will announce the new development as we go,” she said.
Dr Masango said, however, the new curriculum will remain generally the same with only a few adjustments.
During consultations to review the curriculum early this year, most parents had called on the Government to overhaul the new curriculum.
“It is the position of the ministry that the new curriculum will stay despite an outcry from teachers and parents alike. We can only make adjustments to try and improve the document so that it becomes the best,” said Dr Utete-Masango.
She said the ministry was ready to listen to contributions from different spheres.
“Let us embrace the new curriculum, it is the one that moulds the child, whatever contributions you make, let it be in the hope of improving the document and make it a more perfect document,” she said.
Dr Utete-Masango urged teachers to form learning areas associations which makes it easy for the Government to relay information to teachers.
“Teachers learn best from each other hence the idea of learning area associations like this one which made us gather here today. The associations should include teachers from ECD level to Advanced Level to create a bridge between primary and secondary education” she said.
The ministry, she said, had identified eight learning areas, English and Foreign Languages, Mathematics, Sciences, Indigenous Languages, Technical and Design, Physical Education and Sports, Commercials and Humanities, as the learning areas that should be formed.
English and Foreign Languages Teachers Association of Zimbabwe interim chairperson Mr Leonard Ngwenya said the convention was meant for clarifications on the new set-up of the English Examination paper.
“There were some grey areas on the recently released English specimen examination paper that we needed clarification as well as Literature. And I am glad that those aspects were ironed out which was the idea of this convention,” he said.
About 400 teachers from across the country, Ministry of Primary and Secondary education officials as well as Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) officials attended the event.
