Former Primary and Education minister Lazarus Dokora has
said he gave it his best despite public distrust while his predecessor Paul
Mavima believes Dokora was “hugely misunderstood.”
Dokora along with Christopher Mutsvangwa and Clever Nyathi
had made it into Cabinet last week only for their appointments to be rescinded
two days later.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa quickly moved to drop them
from his Cabinet upon realising that he had overlooked the number of
non-constituency legislators he could appoint to be ministers.
Had Dokora not been chopped, it would have been a
continuation of his tenure which begun in 2013.
“It was about the number of non-constituency members,” said
Dokora, before defending his position on the new curriculum insisting “there
were cabinet decisions” which he was only a figure head in their
implementation.
Dokora had previously told the Daily News that “the name
calling, the attention drawing by persons or even the agenda setting by media,”
had not left him dismayed.
“In itself it has actually assisted the education sector in
making sure that everybody pays attention to the processes that are underway in
the ministry,” he said.
“At the beginning I kept saying ‘no I am not changing
(anything), we need to tweak, we are good at knowledge form but we need skills
and value…so ultimately everyone appreciates that you can’t continue to produce
kids who are dysfunctional in their own economy. It doesn’t make logical or
rational sense.”
Dokora is fully aware that many of his pronouncements have
set him on a collision course with stakeholders in the education sector but his
successor would like to see him being remembered in good light.
“He was a hard worker, that work ethic is what I learnt
from him. A lot of people misunderstood him. He was a visionary. He knew where
he wanted to take the new curriculum,” Mavima told the Daily News yesterday.
The introduction of the national pledge which critics said
was an attempt to indoctrinate children set Dokora on a collision course with
many.
His pronouncements on condoms and scripture union did
little to instil trust in the masses who failed to understand his methods.
And when he scraped off monetary incentives for teachers
and banned extra lessons, his subordinates were quick to call him Dofora (daft one) which did not appear to extinguish
the passion with which he went about his business.
However, Mavima said yesterday that there is no going back
on the new curriculum and the national pledge.
Mavima said his ministry would soon carry out an assessment
of the new curriculum with a view to improve the strategy of its
implementation.
“We are going to do a process evaluation, see where we are
going wrong and alter where it’s needed change course. We are not going to go
back and say we don’t want to do Stem, we can’t go back and say we don’t want
to promote entrepreneurship, promote critical thinking, patriotism.
“We can’t go back and say we don’t want to promote
nationalism and national identity among our learners. We want learners who come
out proud to be Zimbabwean. So all these issues are not a matter of discussion.
What is matter of discussion is that is this syllabus offering exactly what we
want? And these are matters we are going to evaluate before the end of the
year.” Daily News
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