GOVERNMENT has set up a fund to assist schools affected by natural disasters with primary and secondary schools respectively expected to receive US$5 000 and US$10 000 in the event of a disaster.
Primary and Secondary Education minister Torerai Moyo revealed this while responding to questions in the Senate on Thursday last week. The money would be targeted at classrooms destroyed by wind and storms.
“Our ministry has got complementary funding to the tune of US$5 000 for primary schools and US$10 000 for secondary schools. These are funds that are availed by development partners and I would not want to name them. If they write letters to our ministry, we are in a position to assist those schools that would have been affected by natural disasters,” he said.
In an unrelated matter, Moyo said the Continuous Assessment Learning Activity (Cala) curriculum will not be removed, but would, instead, be reformed in response to feedback from stakeholders.
“I cannot say that we are going to remove Cala, but we follow what people want. So indeed, for Grade 7 pupils, they have a lot of work doing Cala. So, multiplying 5 by 6 you get 30, which is quite voluminous for children and it is a burden to them,” he said.
Moyo said the ministry would convene a meeting to give feedback to stakeholders on the results of the consultations that were done on Cala.
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“In the past, we know that when we were going to school, there was only one project at secondary as well as university level, but you find pupils doing 30 projects which is quite tough, we are going to implement the views and contributions of the people,” he said.
Under Cala, pupils are supposed to carry out projects and tasks in schools, which constitute 30% of their coursework for the final examination under the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council for each subject.
The Cala curriculum has been roundly criticised by most stakeholders as being too burdensome for pupils and teachers.