A 22-year-old Law student at the University of Zimbabwe decided to retake Advanced Level examinations in order to better understand the challenges faced by learners since the introduction of the new curriculum by becoming one of them.
Mboneni Ngwenya finished high school in 2017 and got enrolled into UZ law school in 2018.
He recently got his second A level results which he passed with 25 points in six subjects – Ndebele, History, Family and Religious Studies, Geography, Biology and Chemistry. Said Ngwenya:
I have always been interested in understanding what young people go through, especially those still in school and recently, many have been complaining and seemed to be facing hardships in keeping up with the new curriculum.
Now I have better knowledge of how high school feels like nowadays and it will be easier for me to suggest ways to ease the pressure on the students and also make sure the pass rate keeps improving as well.
Meanwhile, parents and guardians under the Our Zimbabwe campaign recently petitioned Parliament to have the new curriculum suspended, saying it is expensive and its implementation was rushed.
Parents are opposed to the Continuous Assessment Learning Activity (CALA), and projects where learners are asked to do many projects per term which are deemed too expensive.