By Staff Reporter | Zvishavane’s Dadaya High School founded by Sir Garfield Todd parents have dragged Primary and Secondary Education minister, Lazarus Dokora to court over the new education curriculum he has introduced.

The parents, through their School Development Committee (SDC) are accusing Dokora of imposing the new curriculum on their children without consultations.

The School’s SDC through its lawyers, Mutendi, Mudisi and Shumba Legal Practitioners, on Friday filed an urgent chamber application at the Bulawayo High Court citing Dokora and the school headmaster as respondents.
The parents are arguing that the new curriculum should be suspended until proper consultations have been done.
In his founding affidavit, the school’s SDC chairperson, Leopold Mudisi, argued that the implementation of the new curriculum compromised the education delivery system.
“The respondents made a complete paradigm shift from the conventional subjects offered at the school.
Subjects such as physical education, sport and mass displays have been made compulsory.
The subject combinations in terms of a circular made available to parents makes it impossible for pupils to fit into the existing system which the respondents are trying to phase out,” he said.

He further stated that the new curriculum was “an ambitious” project which would unnecessarily burden teachers and compromise the future of learners.
“The overhaul of the curriculum is impractical. The learning time for conventional subjects was always not enough and thus to introduce new subjects is ambitious and sounds myopic. There are no qualified teachers at the school to teach the new subjects and inevitably it will affect the pupils’ performance,” he said.
The parents said there was no way curriculum changes can be implemented without consultations.
They said since they were responsible for payment of school fees and the future of their children, they were supposed to be consulted.
“The parents are the guardians of these pupils since they are minors and as such their views and recommendations are of paramount importance. The Government does not offer grants for students and it is the parents who have the burden of financing the education of their children,” said Mudisi.
On Thursday the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe held a stakeholders meeting where it also resolved to sue Dokora