Free science schools by next year

Source: Free science schools by next year | Sunday News (local news) Michael Magoronga, Midlands Correspondent 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 […]

The post Free science schools by next year appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: Free science schools by next year | Sunday News (local news)

Michael Magoronga, Midlands Correspondent

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.

The post Free science schools by next year appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.