…….. Paid Extra Lessons Debacle.
By Anonymous Observer
Masvingo-There are shifts in the way education is being administered in the country. While the shifts have not yet been officially approved, both the education administrators and the society at large seem to have found convergence in allowing curriculum paradigm shifts to be operational.
This is convergence for convenience.
It is convergence for convenience as the employer has found solace in warding off potential strikes by frustrated lowly paid educationists while parents sheepishly and hurtfully acknowledge its implementation to ensure their children to continue to learn in the backdrop of compromised classroom teaching.
This is now the norm in the education sector. There is more of extra lessons for children. Extra lessons are carried out in the guise of morning or lunch work for children.
It is not done to the low or average performing children. There is no open reason why extra lessons have gained traction in the whole country where no work stoppage has been experienced.
One would wonder what and where the extra lessons compensate any lost teaching time! Could it be that sporting activities are increasingly taking much of the teaching time?
This is a question which demands more exploration of what has caused the education curriculum to be juxtaposed with extra lessons. Visit to most of the children’s learning points one finds those who are charged with teaching are comfortably shying away from classroom presence, preferring to form salary discussion forums outside the classroom setting.
What is painful about this development is that parents/guardians are forking out from their “deep pockets” cash as payment for extra lessons.
How is the new education policy consoling the educationists? Imagine a teacher having a class of forty children with each child paying ten dollars per month for extra lessons (this is happening in urban areas) or five United States dollars in rural areas! So per month the teacher is pocketing four/two hundred United States dollars respectively per month, and this is enough consolation for their grievances against poor and paltry wages.
The parent is “flogged” twice by this system as he/she is expected to pay tuition fees for the child and fee for the extra lessons.
Sadly there are some teachers who just take away the cash for extra lessons while not effectively teaching the children who participate in extra lesson sessions.
I have heard some teachers boasting that they don’t care whether the child is improving or not in mastering the taught concepts.
This is sad as we have also seen a rise in number of teachers buying top of the range vehicles despite their wages defining them as living above one’s means.
This is one of the worrisome developments which continues to receive recognition by both the teaching administration and the parents.
This system must be thoroughly investigated and if need be, it must be officially endorsed and agreed on. The question is who is supposed to complement teachers’ perceived low wages? This is a million dollar question which will continue to evade searches for resolution.
The anonymous observer writes in his own capacity
