Parents Set To March Against The New Curriculum

Newly formed parents organization, Our Zimbabwe will hold a peaceful march tomorrow in Harare CBD to express their grief against the new curriculum.

The new curriculum was implemented by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) in 2017 from grade one to advanced level.

It replaced the traditional curriculum which was adopted in 1980 from the colonial Rhodesian regime.

In an interview with 263 times yesterday, Our Zimbabwe Coordinator Mr. Lovemore Majoko said the peaceful march came to light when parents expressed their grief against the new curriculum.

“We have consulted the parents all over the country and this prompted us to organize for the peaceful march. We realized that parents are being burdened with this new curriculum, it’s not something that we have talked over a night but we have done consultations,” he said.

Our Zimbabwe Community Activist Mr. Moderate Kasvosve said the new curriculum has made it difficult for some parents especially in the rural areas to cope with the requirements.

“Parents can’t afford the required materials. The required materials are costly, most work requires Google and printing. They can’t afford, most parents are not full time workers and some are not even employed. They can’t even pay school fees, to date some parents do not have mobile phones. Those with mobile phones can at times fail to buy bundles,” said Kasvosve.

Meanwhile, Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe {ARTUZ} President Mr. Obert Masaraure told 263times that they are not aware of the tomorrow’s march and the existence of Our Zimbabwe.

But he agreed with the idea of Our Zimbabwe on the review of the new curriculum.

“I think this movement has a brilliant idea which we are not aware of. We have always called upon the parents to organize themselves and demand quality education for their children. It is not the responsibility of the teachers alone to be demanding quality education for Zimbabwean learners.

“Funding has been a big challenge for the implementation of the new curriculum. We don’t have the resources to implement it. Schools are supposed to be running ICT in Binga but they don’t even have electricity. Teachers don’t have the capacity to deliver so there is a need for government to put budgetary allocations towards that,” he said.

Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe {PTUZ} President, Takavafira Zhou also said they were not aware of the organization and the peaceful march.

He hailed the government for implementing the new curriculum but castigated the Continuous Assessment Leaning Activities CALA as “ludicrous”.

“We are not aware of the organization or the tomorrow march.

“We are not against the new curriculum, but we are against unreasonable decisions that do not resonate with educational taxonomy. The concept of blending theory and practical experience is brilliant, but doing 5 Continuous Assessment Learning Activities (CALAs) per subject is ludicrous hallucination of the worst order overburdening pupils, parents and teachers,” he said.

Government introduced the new curriculum in 2017 to prepare learners for a largely agro-based economy, encourage life long learning that promotes patriotism and participatory citizenship for sustainable development among other objectives.

 

A Journalist, writer and photographer

x
scroll to top