Government rolls out new curriculum without books
Secondary schools across the country have rolled out the new senior secondary school curriculum without core textbooks.
Teachers are currently forced to use the books they were using for the phased out curriculum to, at least, keep the learners busy as they wait for delivery of the approved books.
Schools started delivering lessons on the new senior secondary curriculum to the learners in form three in the 2017/18 academic year which began on September 18.
Some teachers who attended a week-long training workshop on Secondary School Curriculum Assessment and Review (SSCAR) for the new curriculum said some facilitators advised them to improvise by using books with topics that relate to topics in the new curriculum.
Secondary school teachers we talked to said they are, in essence, cheating instead of teaching the learners.
They even said the copies of new syllabi are not available in schools and they are just using some social media circulated soft copies.
“We are just going into form three classrooms to keep the learners busy. Otherwise, what we are doing is cheating as it may not reflect what is needed in the new curriculum,” the teacher said.
Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) Executive Director, Benedicto Kondowe, has described the development as a classic example of government’s policy failure.
Kondowe said the government planned and knew about the new curriculum, meaning books were supposed to be available at the time of rolling out the new curriculum.
“The use of materials that are just related to the new curriculum is totally wrong and absurd because that simply means what we are teaching is not what we were supposed to teach our students,” Kondowe said.
“The information that is passing from one person to the other changes meaning over time and we may end up losing the essence of the new curriculum in the process of sharing,” he said.
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology spokesperson, Lindiwe Chide, asked for more time to consult before responding.
Government launched the new curriculum for junior secondary section in 2015 and the current form three learners were pioneers.
When contacted, Minister of Education, Bright Msaka, asked to be called later at night.
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