The Sunday News
Leonard Ncube, Sunday News Reporter
IN the academic life, graduating is revered; it is a marked milestone achievement in one’s life that is always characterised by merry-making as a celebration of the effort and hard work that would have been put as one goes for the next academic challenge.
The continued evolution of education curriculum in the country with the aim of improving the standards has seen one graduating at Early Childhood Development (ECD) and on completion of different tertiary education levels.
And traditionally, the months of November and December each year are characterised by school graduation ceremonies where ECD pupils wrap up pre-school life to start Grade One.
This has been appreciated by both parents and stakeholders in the education sector because it inspires confidence in children and make them carry the challenge to be capped again at tertiary education level.
However, the coming in of the new curriculum set for implementation next January, those who graduated this year may as well become the last group in the history of education in the country as Government, through the Ministry of Primary and
Secondary Education has phased out ECD learning-making way for formal education.
This may as well affect a number of private pre-schools in the country some of which were not fully registered that were run by teachers most of whom could not be absorbed into formal teaching due to a number of reasons chief among them lack of fiscus space that has led Government to put recruitment on freeze.
In the new curriculum, there isn’t a teacher and pupils but educator and learner as learning becomes formal and interactive with the aim of developing a “complete individual” equipped with lifelong skills.
A number of changes are nigh in the new curriculum, some of them the coming in of District Schools Inspectors (DSI)s, phasing out District Education Officers, segmentation of primary education into infant and junior where primary school will now take nine years, up from seven.
Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango said there would be no graduation at ECD level.
“There is no more Grade Zero as everything is now formal education. What used to be ECD will no longer be there as we now have the infant stage which covers ECD up to Grade Two and junior school that covers Grade Three up to Grade Seven,” said Dr Utete-Masango.
“The teaching and graduation of ECD pupils is a practice that has always been there but it’s coming to an end in the new curriculum when the new system is implemented in January.”
She said in the new curriculum, there won’t be graduation from infant to junior school as learners would only be tested by way of general examinations, the same way that happens with Grade Sevens.
“They don’t graduate at a sub-level. What it means is that they don’t graduate but go straight to Grade Three just like Grade Sevens don’t graduate but write general examinations before crossing over to Form One,” said Dr Utete-Masango.
Under the new curriculum, Dr Utete-Masango said, all education centres that were not registered would not be recognised by Government.
She said all children aged four would be required to be in formal schools while creches would only be allowed to cater for “three-year-olds and not Grade Zero.”
“If they are at a private school, the centre must be registered with the Ministry and that’s how only and when it can get a syllabus,” added the Permanent Secretary.
She said the new DSIs would be in full force on the ground to monitor if teachers were qualified and education centres were registered.
The new curriculum is aimed at fostering a sense of national pride among pupils by shifting attention from academic development to lifelong skills.
Some schools have already prepared themselves for implementation of the new curriculum.
Last week at a 12th graduation ceremony of 152 ECD pupils (80 boys and 72 girls) at Mgoqo Primary School in Bulawayo’s Nkulumane 12 suburb, infants displayed a memorable show in modelling at gymnastics as well as percussion.
So marvellous were the displays that one could be forgiven for thinking they were watching secondary school pupils.
Acting Mzilikazi DSI, Mrs Zanele Muyambo, who was the guest of honour, said in the new curriculum pupils would be developed in all aspects of life to make them responsible individuals.
“This is a new position that’s coming with the new curriculum. The aim is to develop pupils holistically- that is academically, emotionally, physically and socially. The new curriculum allows kids to play because they learn through playing and get empowered socially and emotionally,” she said.
Mrs Muyambo said focus areas were art, outdoor playing, and music with emphasis on percussion as a community based approach to develop music among others, with all subjects targeted at infant learning.
In the new curriculum, developing a child isn’t the duty of teachers only as parents would also be required to work hard towards that, added Mrs Muyambo.
This goes beyond taking the child to school and also encompasses making sure children aren’t exposed to abuse be it sexual, emotional or physical where parents can play a part by not fighting in front of their children.
Teacher in charge of infants at Mgoqo, Mrs Barbra Moyo said as a school they met Government stipulation as they have nine qualified infant teachers, with an enrolment of 202 ECD A for 2016, up from 182 last year, which a sign of how important early childhood education was.
“This is a momentous occasion in the development of a learner as they cap two years of ECD. We have five qualified teachers paid by the Government and four paid by parents,” she said.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora had said before that, in the new curriculum the duty of a school head would be to identity and mainstream qualities both in educators and learners.
“If a teacher is good in music or any traditional dance, as a head you should give him or her that space to develop that and we all develop,” he said at a National Association of Primary School Heads (Nash) congress in Victoria Falls recently.
The aim of the new curriculum is to make sure pupils benefit directly from the many empowerment initiatives launched since independence, some of them not yet tapped into.
This will no doubt prepare learners for life and work alike, so they are motivated to cherish their Zimbabwean identity and value their heritage and cultural traditions and prepare them for being responsible and participatory citizens.
The new curriculum framework runs up to 2022 and forms part of the implementation of the recommendations of the Nziramasanga Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training.
It is based on five pillars, namely the legal and regulatory framework, teacher capacity and development, teacher professional standards, infrastructure development and the establishment of a Centre for Education Research and Innovation and Development.
One of its attributes is teaching of Science and Mathematics in local languages at infant stage as part of promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in schools.
Other learning areas at ECD level will include Languages, Visual and Performing Arts, Physical Education, Family and Heritage Studies, Information and Communication.
Infant classes will also be conducted in local languages unlike the current obsession where most of the centres are teaching children in English.
@ncubeleon
