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Prof Mavima . . . “We are going to review and be pragmatic in the implementation of this new curriculum”

THE INTERVIEW: Tichaona Zindoga
Recent Cabinet changes by President Emmerson Mnangagwa triggered mixed reactions, but one of the biggest talking points concerned the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, where Dr Lazarus Dokora was initially retained to serve in the new Government, but his appointment was quickly reversed. He was replaced by his former deputy, Professor Paul Mavima, bringing a sense of relief to a significant portion of the public, who believed Dr Dokora was leading the country’s basic education on a wrong path. The Herald’s Political Editor, Tichaona Zindoga (TZ) on Thursday caught up with Prof Mavima (PM) to talk about the trajectory of the ministry, the new curriculum, parents and teachers’ concerns and the controversy around the “National Schools Pledge” and alleged “Islamisation” of the sector. Below is the conversation:

TZ: Congratulations on your appointment as the new Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. Now, does this change of guard — your taking over from Dr Dokora – fundamentally change how people ought to understand the work that you are trying to do in terms of the new curriculum and the general trajectory of the ministry?

PM: The change over from Dr Dokora to me as the minister in this ministry does not change the fundamental orientation of the ministry as far as the curriculum is concerned. Think of it this way, a choice that we have to make is between a curriculum of the 20th Century and that of the 21st Century. It’s between a curriculum that emphasised on rote learning to a curriculum that emphasises problem solving, critical thinking and innovation.

It’s really a difference between a curriculum that is status quo-oriented versus a curriculum that is futuristic in terms of its orientation.

So in terms of the overall orientation, we are not going to see a big change. What we are going to do is to refine, especially around the implementation of this new curriculum. We are going to review and be pragmatic in the implementation of this new curriculum.

We have already started to see or to hear lots of complaints, especially around the specific syllabus regarding the scheduling and the availability of teaching and learning materials.

All those issues have come to the attention of the ministry and therefore we are going to review the process and refine it so that there is smooth implementation of this new curriculum.

But Zimbabweans should really bite the bullet and say, let’s embrace a curriculum of the 21st Century and leave a curriculum that we have had for almost 90 years with the same kind of orientation. We need to be globally competitive and we have to embrace a curriculum that gives us global competitiveness; a curriculum that takes us into the 21st Century. But we have to do it cognisant of the resources that are available to us.

We also have to do it cognisant of the fact that we have to be pragmatic and change where we need to change in order to facilitate smooth implementation of that curriculum.

TZ: The issue of resources has been looming large regarding the implementation of this curriculum. Where and how are you going to get resources to put this curriculum into motion?

PM: For starters, we are going to roll out a programme to provide teaching and learning materials to a lot of our schools through a $9 million grant from the Education Development Fund (EDF), which is a fund which is put together by a number of development partners that we work with, but administered through the UN system under Unicef.

We are going to use $9 million to deliver teaching and learning materials to almost all our schools. This will be a very good starting point. Additionally, the same EDF has committed to continue to support us as we go. There is what is called Global Partnership for Education, there are applications that we are doing there for upwards of $20 million so that we can continue to put money into various programmes that support the implementation of the new curriculum. We are also very hopeful that the new(National) Budget is going to prioritise this new curriculum so that we use our own national resources to fund the new curriculum.

I know for sure that the training of teachers is going to be a priority, the continued improvement of the infrastructure to bring it to levels that are conducive to quality education is also going to be a priority under the our new curriculum. Additionally, we are using innovative ways to raise resources.

For example, for infrastructure, we are going to go into partnerships and we are at an advanced stage in terms of laying the legislative framework that will allow us to work with our joint venture partnerships to fund, especially infrastructure. By infrastructure here, we mean not only the buildings, but also ICT structures.

It’s a big thing as far as this curriculum is concerned – it’s connectivity, it’s electricity – all those have to come under the venture of partnerships in order to avail them in our various schools throughout the country.

TZ: A major concern is that rural schools would be at a disadvantage in the implementation of this curriculum, and some blame the curriculum as elitist. How are you going to bridge the rural-urban gap?

PM: I am fully aware of the divide and the disparities between rural and urban among our schools, but let me say that we have already started the process of bridging that gap.

For example, we are very impressed with the work that the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) is doing to roll out electricity to all our schools and there has been tremendous progress towards making sure that our schools are on the electricity grid throughout the country and the Ministry of Energy has made it its aim or its objective to make sure that within maybe the next four or five years every school will be on the national grid. So, we are very happy with that. We have also entered into agreements with three companies: TelOne, Zarnet and E-Learning Solutions to roll out a connectivity programme, to provide Internet to almost all the schools in the country. What now remains and where we want to work innovatively is on the issue of the gadgets themselves, like computers.

Again here we have to facilitate the roll out of a computerisation programme in addition to what we had before, the Presidential Schools Computerisation Programme driven mainly by Zarnet. I know that we have a Universal Services Fund, which targets marginalised areas, where services would not come from commercial providers. So we want to tap into all these resources to ensure that this rural-urban digital divide; or if you want, it might be called the “economic divide”, is bridged to ensure that when everything is said and done, kids in the urban areas and kids in the rural areas are getting similar services as far as education is concerned.

TZ: Phase One of the implementation of the new curriculum has been done and has been reviewed and we also have Grade 7 exams that were written under the new curriculum. How are these going to inform the implementation of the next phase?

PM: Let me correct you on the Grade 7 exams. The only thing that changed as far as the 2017 Grade 7 exams were concerned was the introduction of Agriculture, but 2017 Grade 7s were not per se on the new platform, on the new curriculum.

However, the introduction of Agriculture has indicated to us that the change does not necessarily impact on the quality of education because we managed to increase the pass rate by almost two percent from 2016. Agriculture itself, as a new subject, had better performance than other subjects, other traditional subjects that we have been teaching.

So it has shown us that changing things does not necessarily negatively impact on the performance of students. They did better in the new subject, although we are still analysing those results to get a more nuanced view of what is going on so that if there is any need to change the way we teach, we can do that.

TZ: A lot of parents and teachers have been complaining about the poor communication by the ministry. How are you going to address this challenge?

PM: We have to have a very robust unit within the ministry to make sure that our messages get out. Education is one of the most important aspects for national development and it’s an emotive aspect for that matter.

Everyone is interested to see how the future of the young generation is shaped through the socialisation that takes place in our schools. We need a very robust unit that communicates effectively our policies, intentions, the support that we need from the rest of the nation in order to achieve the goals we want to achieve; and get reactions to what the public is feeding back to us. All those need to be communicated effectively and I want to agree that we have not been very effective.

Some of the good aspects or elements of the updated curriculum have not been effectively communicated and we lost an opportunity there, but we can’t continue in the same mode.

We have to come up with a robust communication strategy so that we pull the nation together as we go forward.

TZ: You have a very strong background in the private sector. What can our public sector, in this instance, the education sector, learn from the private sector as you roll out its programmes?

PM: If we want to turn around Zimbabwe, it can never be business as usual.

The public sector has to know that you can’t follow traditional bureaucratic procedures if you want to succeed, especially if you want fast results like Zimbabwe at the moment.

You have to cut bureaucratic corners, but not in a corrupt way, in order to facilitate efficiency and effectiveness.

You have to be innovative. You need to walk things in order for them to be done; you can’t always stay in the office. You have to manage by walking around and making sure that everyone is doing their bit.

You can’t follow the usual communication channels . . . everything has to be done as quickly as possible.

TZ: Many people are worried about the so-called Islamisation of our education sector. Your predecessor was accused of banning the Scripture Union and trying to foist Islam on learners.

PM: We want to be very clear, there was never Islamisation in the curriculum. There wasn’t any major change from the previous syllabus on religion to the new syllabus. What was retained was just the descriptive teaching of the various religions as Religious Studies, which is different from Theology. Theology is almost like teaching a doctrine so that people understand it and they can go and preach. But ours was the teaching of religion, almost in a way to say there is Christianity, there is Hinduism and Islam. The founders are these, the practises are these. It was almost like opening up the minds of the learners to say, here is the world and these are the different beliefs in the world.

Religious Studies as a subject is different from indoctrination, which tries to get people to accept a particular religion. If you go back, you will find out it was always the case – at Grade 3, Grade 4 – that is where we knew Islam was started by Prophet Muhammed and they face towards Mecca, but we were never told to convert to Islam, we remained Christian.

Let me assure the nation that there was never a ban on the Scripture Union as a club in our school: it continues to exist. We are not going to interfere with the operation of clubs in our school. We actually promote it because it is part of the socialisation that we encourage. What we may also have to do is to go back to what was known as Rite of Entry. There used to be a period of about 30 minutes, where various denominations would come to schools and talk to learners who belong to their denominations. We understand Zimbabwe is a 90 percent Christian country, but we cannot have a situation where our teachers become pastors who try and convert students to a specific religion. We will not allow it.

There is space for Religious Studies, but there is space to practise religion which is outside the school environment.

TZ: And connected to that, the issue of the National Pledge, what is the way forward?

PM: The way forward with the National Schools Pledge is that there should be a panel to look at it, especially with a view to coming up with a National Pledge and not just a National Schools Pledge. The idea of a National Pledge is not a novel idea: national pledges are there everywhere. A national pledge commits an individual to their country and heritage.

We as Zimbabweans need to reinforce our commitment to this country and to our heritage, saying “I owe allegiance to my county”. There are a lot of countries that have pledges and I think Zimbabwe needs to come up with a national pledge. There wouldn’t be any need to have a National Schools Pledge if there was a National Pledge because it would cover everyone.

The USA has a national pledge and it is recited before any public event. Zimbabwe needs, in the spirit of promoting patriotism, love of country, a statement of allegiance to the country, a National Pledge.