Contact
Details
Contact Person: Joshua Kawadza
E-mail: None
Fax: None
Postal Address: Private Bag 7745
Causeway
Harare
Telephone: 333 815
Description
The Government Primary Correspondence School was established in 1930.
It started as an experiment sponsored by the Department of Education, after Mr. Tait, who
visited Rhodesia on an educational commission from Australia, had suggested a formation of
such a school. From its establishment, the school’s mission has been to ‘provide
basic high quality non-formal primary education through distance education strategies
which include multi-media approaches and systematic counseling catering for marginalized
or disadvantaged pupils in Zimbabwe and beyond, so as to produce wholesome
individuals’. The marginalized or disadvantaged are defined as children who live in
remote farms and do not have access to formal schooling.
Unlike formal primary schools, whose pupil intake freezes at a
particular point, the correspondence school does not stop registration. Pupils who
register late in the year are required to finish the first term work before they embark on
the work done during their registration. Through this school, learning takes place
anywhere and at learners’ own pace. Because registration at the school takes place
anytime and parents are at liberty to de-register their children anytime in the year,
enrolment statistics for this year (1999), were not confirmed yet and therefore could not
be provided.
Statistics indicate that, by the end of the 1998 academic year, the
total number of registered pupils had reached 283. Of the 283 pupils, 192 were White, 86
Black, 3 Coloured, and 2 Asian. The dominance of white pupils in the school is attributed
to the fact that the school has been known to the white community for centuries, whereas
few black people have realized that the school exists.
Like formal government primary schools in Zimbabwe, the Correspondence
School is a primary school operating under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education.
It receives full funding from the government. As a result, no attempts have been made to
secure any form of financial assistance from other sources. However, parents who have
formed what is known as School Development Association (SDA) have been offering the school
both financial and material assistance.
Delivery Modes and Technologies
Teaching and learning happens by distance and printed materials are the
main delivery mode used by the school. Packages of printed learning materials, including
full instructions on how to do the work, are sent by post to registered pupils
countrywide. After completing tasks, pupils send their work to the school to be marked by
teachers based at the school.
Parents, through the SDA, have bought a Rizograph for the school. They
maintain the machine, buy ink, provide stencils and other necessary equipment that helps
the school print and prepare learning materials. To supplement the printed learning
materials, the school also uses radio. Different subjects/lessons are broadcast everyday
between 10H55 and 11H10. Teachers, who prepare the learning materials are also responsible
for writing scripts, which are then sent to the Audi-Visual Service for recording before
they are sent to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) for broadcasting. Students
are also allowed to send empty cassettes to dub the broadcast lessons.
According to Mr. Kawadza, the school’s principal, the school also
has lessons recorded on video-cassettes. However, parents and children have not been
forthcoming to either dub or use such material.
Learner Support Strategies
The school’s involvement in learner support has been mainly
through preparing learning materials, marking learners’ work, providing radio
broadcast lessons, and dubbing lessons for learners on request. It has mainly been the
responsibility of parents either to help their children themselves or to hire supervisors
to assist the children. The supervisors and parents are not expected to teach the
children, but to offer support where needs be. Among some of their responsibilities are to
ensure that learners listen to radio broadcast lessons and that they answer questions
asked during the lessons. Supervisors/parents may ask for assistance from teachers based
at the school if learner are experiencing some problems in the learning processes.
Since teachers who mark the pupils’ work are based at the
school’s headquarters and thus are not in constant interaction with either pupils or
supervisors, they are expected to give detailed comments on the learners’ performance
when marking the pupils’ work. They communicate with parents or supervisors if they
notice inconsistencies in a learner’s performance. Lack of transport or travel and
subsistence allowances is seen as the major crippling factor on the supervisory activities
and material testing by teachers, as they are unable to visit learning groups.
Assessment
Assessment happens continuously. On registration, pupils receive their
learning material in sets covering, for example, arithmetic, writing, art, Shona/Ndebele,
English, sounds, etc, depending on the learner’s level of study. Each set consists of
15 modules, which the learner has to complete. Ones they have completed their tasks, they
send these to the school for marking. Teachers mark the work and keep records of marks.
Marking and keeping of learners’ records happens continuously until a learner has
completed all the sets for the year.
The school itself does not administer examinations, but arrangements
are being made for students to write common examinations with other formal schools.
Quality Assurance
The school ensures quality by hiring highly qualified and experienced
teachers who help the school to produce quality learning materials. Parents, particularly
those who are professionals in their own right, are also used to comment on the work
produced. The school also judges its quality through the work produced by the learners,
the satisfaction of parents, and performance of their learners who have subsequently
joined formal schooling (the Correspondence School only ran up to grade 4 before grade 5
was introduced in 1999).
Professional Development
Because most teachers who are working in the school had received their
training to teach in formal schools, there has always been a need to develop these
teachers’ skills in the area of producing distance education materials. With
assistance from NGOs, workshops have been organized to train teachers.
Though the supervisors are not hired by the school or the Ministry of
Education, all supervisors are called to a workshop to be trained on how to handle
learning material and offer supervision annually in January. The only limitation is that
workshops are held when funds are available. As a result of this, training does not happen
as regularly as it should.
National and Institutional Policy
The Correspondence School operates under the section of Adult and
Non-Formal Education, the role of which is: to formulate policy on adult continuing and
distance education; to create facilities and opportunities for learning outside the formal
system; and to coordinate and monitor the activities, personnel, and organizations
involved in programmes under its charge. Policy development at both national and
institutional levels are guided by the ministry’s mission to provide high quality and
relevant primary, secondary, and non-formal education, and to facilitate access to and
participation in sport, recreation, and culture in order to enrich the lives of all the
people of Zimbabwe. The commitment of the government to ensuring access to affordable and
continuing education is evident in the number of formal and non-formal educational
programmes that it is supporting. These include the Correspondence Schools; Part-Time and
Continuing Education Classes; Study Groups; Vacational School Courses; Independent and
Correspondence Colleges, and the Ex-Refugees and Ex-Combatants Programme.
Enabling and Hindering Factors
Factors that enable the school to succeed relate to the support it gets
from the government and parents. In addition, its use of well-qualified and experienced
teachers to produce quality learning materials also enable it to offer quality education
at a low cost for parents.
The major hindering factor relates to lack of resources. As a result of
this, the principal and teachers are unable to visit groups and individual learners
regularly. The school would also want to pre-test its material before they are sent to
learners, but this can also not be done. This impacts negatively on the success of the
school. A clear example is that of newly produced material for grade 5, which could not be
pre-tested and were later found to be too demanding. This was picked up when it was
realized that learners were actually struggling to finish the work. |
