Cabinet to decide on competence based curriculum- Minister

Cabinet will next week decide on whether or not the country should continue implementing the competence based educational curriculum, commonly known as CALA, Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Torerai Moyo said on Thursday.

Continuous Learning Activities (CALA) has been criticised for overloading learners with work, mostly being done by parents and guardians.

During review consultations conducted in schools countrywide recently, parents and teachers rejected CALA in its current form, and called for its fine tuning.

Responding to questions from legislators in the National Assembly, Moyo said cabinet would next week be seized with the CALA issue.

Legislators felt parents were using too much money to sponsor CALA.

“It is true that parents have been spending a lot of money on CALA. It was even higher than tuition fees, especially in rural areas. So the plan is to review the CALA issues as we review the competence-based curriculum that started working in 2015 up to 2022,” Moyo said.

“This issue will be taken to Cabinet, chaired by His Excellency President Mnangagwa next week. The meeting will determine whether the CALAs will be taken out or we will review them. At the moment I would not be able to respond whether the CALAs will be removed or they will remain. I can only know that after Cabinet deliberations,” he added.

CALA is expected to help produce young Zimbabweans who were knowledgeable, can think critically, creatively and solve problems.

New Ziana