ECD must be stopped: First Lady
FIRST Lady Cde Auxillia Mnangagwa has urged the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to stop the Early Childhood Development (ECD) learning programme saying it is anti-girl child development and contributes to high rates of school drop-outs.
The First Lady also condemned employment of teachers who cannot speak local languages in districts where they are deployed.
Addressing heads of Government departments and other stakeholders before sharing an early Christmas party with children from Binga district at the Catholic-run Sunrise Children’s Home here yesterday, Cde Mnangagwa said ECD learning, introduced in the new education curriculum, forces kids to spend nine years in primary school as opposed to the traditional seven years.
“We don’t want to hear about this ECD. With the ECD A and B, the girl child will spend nine years to get to Grade Seven. This is too much especially for the for the girl child who will have grown big before they get to Form Four and this is contributing to high rates of school drop-outs,” she said. The First Lady was responding to a report by Binga District Schools Inspector Mr Edson Masungo who said the district has 20 892 infants in ECD A and B.
Mr Masungo enraged the First Lady when he said of the 1 525 teachers in the district, 60 percent of them cannot speak Tonga, which is the main local language.
Employment of non-local language speaking teachers especially in Matabeleland provinces has been a thorny issue over the years with various organisations challenging Government about it.
Said Mr Masungo: “Sixty percent of our teachers are nonTonga speakers and we encourage them to learn and speak the local language. There is a deliberate policy that after six months the teacher should be able to converse in the local language.”
The First Lady asked what would be happening to the pupils during the supposed six months ‘local language learning’ period for the teacher, as she said this wastes the children’s time in school.
“Why are we doing that? I once raised this issue in Parliament asking why we are not employing locals in their areas. Government offices are there to listen to us as communities and do what we mandate them to do,” she said.
She challenged the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to urgently look into the issue.
Mr Masungo’s explanation could not convince the First Lady who said: “Ministry of Education you have to think about that.”
According to the Ministry’s report to the First Lady yesterday, names of Tonga speaking teachers had been submitted to the Public Service Commission for employment after the Ministry was given the nod to employ 2 300 teachers.
This they said is a result of a deliberate move to make sure kids are taken care of in their mother language.
“The district has 168 primary and secondary schools, 96 of which are unregistered,” Mr Masungo said. The district has a 15 percent shortage of teachers. @ncubeleon