THE Government is set to establish technical high schools,
science training institutions as well as arts centres that will offer free
education as a way of developing science innovators that will lead the
socio-economic development of the country.
This was said by Primary and Secondary Education Minister,
Professor Paul Mavima in his keynote address during the Midlands Provincial
Speech and Prize Giving Day held at Manunure High School in Kwekwe on Friday.
Prof Mavima said the centres that will have a carrying
capacity of 1 000 learners each, will offer free training to learners that
would have been selected through psychometric tests.
He said the recently introduced competency-based curriculum
had started yielding results adding the centres will come in to complement the
curriculum.
“We are going to have 10 technical high schools across the
country. We are going to put state-of-the-art equipment and we are going to
recruit from all over the country through psychometric testing.
“Learners who will go to these schools free of charge and
it is my hope that we will be the first cohort of such learners by 2020,” said
Professor Mavima. He said two new music and performing arts academies are
also going to be set up.
“We are going to set up two music and performing arts
academies, one in the northern region and one for the southern region in
Bulawayo.
“These will be based on block release basis where we will
identify the most promising learners from across the country and sharpen their
performances. We are looking forward that they will be complete by end of
2020,” he said.
Prof Mavima said besides the science training centres being
aimed at improving science teachers and lecturers, the programme is also aimed
at ensuring that locals could be innovative and tap into the locally available
resources.
“We want to develop science innovators that will lead the
socio-economic development of this country. As a nation, we are endowed with a
vast number of minerals and natural resources but we are not innovative enough
to benefit from our own resources.
Of course we are number one in Africa in terms of literacy,
but that is not enough, we should go beyond the literacy and be able to tap
into our resources hence the creation of these science centres,” he said.
Prof Mavima said the country is failing to benefit from its
own resources due to lack of innovators and gone are the days where foreigners
benefit from local resources.
He said a programme will soon be launched to recognise
performing schools who will receive more equipment from Government for their
achievements.
At the event, teachers and learners walked away with a
different prizes for their academic and teaching achievements in the 2018
academic year. Sunday News
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