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HOW TO FAIL

20/01/2017 02:49:00 By Martin Dlamini

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SWEEPING changes are blowing through the corridors of the Education sector so fast that no parent, teacher or school administrator can explain to anybody what exactly is happening and what will become of our children in schools today.

Our public schools don’t seem to be coping with the whirlwind transformation, teachers can barely deal with the bulging pupil numbers, while administrators are consistently compelled to do more with less.

What next? Sadly the only thing that is in desperate need of a change that is not forthcoming is the leadership at the ministry. We’ve come a long way with poor decision-making in the ministry and it is so bad that it is taking ages to sort out issues like the experimental ban of top-up fees. Now we have more failures being pushed to the next grade, corporal punishment being phased out and politically imposed zero tolerance to other religions in the primary and high school curriculum. It couldn’t get worse!

Locked in boardrooms with a master plan of their own, education experts are making life changing decisions that are drawing reactions which clearly demonstrate the shock and dismay in the manner our Education is being managed. It is characterised by poor consultation, where the views and input of key stakeholders, who include custodians of the affected children, are completely ignored.

School administrators have been reduced to mere spectators, if not puppets; their only worth being how best they can rubber stamp everything thrown at them.
Could this be a case of ‘he who pays the fees calls the shots? Most definitely! The only quandary in this case is that the taxpayer is not the one calling the shots.

Yes, we have entrusted our children in the care of our government of the day, but there is now growing reason to worry about the safety of the children’s future in our education system.
This fear was compounded on Wednesday when the Education Ministry brought school administrators together to announce changes that are to be implemented as immediate as next Tuesday.

The head teachers were told to create departments of Religious Studies as it would now become a core subject in schools and the ministry has promised to provide the required support.

They were also told to ensure that no failures, who are supposed to have been pushed forward remained in the same class. Inspectors are to be deployed to check registers and class lists. Teachers found flouting this rule were warned of dire consequences.

Poor teachers. We do recall how the ministry promised them all the required support to ensure ‘all goes well’ in schools when the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme was introduced. Numerous pronouncements were made that include building additional classrooms, providing assistant teachers, supplying adequate stationery, etc.
None of these have been fulfilled. The ministry recently announced it could not hire more teachers. Funds for building more classrooms have been hard to come by, resulting in the FPE introduction dismally failing in its execution.
Even if funds were to be sufficient, there is no guarantee that they would be used effectively. Take for instance how a company assigned to supply thousands of textbooks for Religious Education has now been told to dump the new books that were already at the border because they have now been rendered useless. At what cost? This is downright reckless to say the least.
What’s worse is that the new books on Christianity will only arrive after April. Teachers were told to make a plan to keep pupils busy while they wait. April, as we all know, is going to be December for some schools. Well, not that teachers haven’t perfected the art of waiting but this has got to stop at some point and that is now.
The execution, no matter how noble the idea, does not inspire the confidence one would expect from educators. What we see unfolding is a government desperate to try and develop a system that will suit its dry coffers. For a country on a trajectory of economic decline, one can’t bear to even think of the value of our education in a few years time. Not surprising for a country that sees failure as success worthy of promotion.