Equity an enemy in the dark shadows

In a quest to improve the quality of the country’s education system, the ministry of education adopted a new curriculum that brought about major changes in the sector. Some of these notable changes include abolishing external exams in grade 10, introducing it in grade 11, and introducing a new curriculum setting for grade 12.

While the idea behind the introduction and launch of the new curriculum was notable and great, its conception was premature and lacked substance and support from within the education system and from key stakeholders.

The curriculum confused parents, teachers, learners, and the community. Teachers and learners are two critical stakeholders who are supposed to propel the curriculum to greater heights. While there was equality in the rollout of the new curriculum, there is still a lack of equity.

There is a need to understand the difference between equality and equity in service delivery. Equality ensures that the service is available to all stakeholders while equity ensures that there is sufficient availability of tools or resources to access services.

In the case of our education system, teachers were supposed to be trained in new teaching techniques and methods as required by the new curriculum and aided with skills on how to include the hidden curriculum in their lesson plans but this did not happen.

It is a pity that after 32 years of independence, you still find schools with no access to electricity, internet, cell, or telephone reception and radio coverage, and yet you expect these schools to perform well under the current curriculum that requires access to improved ICT infrastructure. As long as this gap exists and no one is willing to address it, the situation will only get worse.

The recent grade 11 and 12 poor results were blamed on teachers. Some labelled teachers as joy riders and only teaching to earn a living, while some labelled them as social media influencers (spending most of their time on social media instead of doing their job), and so forth. While the argument may be valid, we have to also ask ourselves questions like; do these teachers have the necessary skills and resources to produce the required results? We need to understand the context of our education system and the discrimination that is in the distribution of learning and teaching materials that exists in the ministry of education and the literacy of other stakeholders like parents and the community.

It is high time we all stop blaming teachers for the failure of learners and start asking ourselves what we can do to improve the situation. Equity is the common enemy that we have failed to defeat and thus we must join hands and embrace it. It lingers and wonders in the shadows waiting for us to bring it to light, however, that can only happen when we do away with corruption, favouritism, and nepotism in the distribution of teaching and learning materials. We have to treat schools as factories of responsible agents and economic catalysts that are required for our economic growth.

To my dear teachers, part of the blame is true for we have drifted away from our call of duty and have prioritised our public reasoning instead of private reasoning in performing our duties. Let us invest in personal development, build our professional careers, and ensure that we build a great reputation for ourselves for the future of our beloved country lies in our hands.