The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Torerayi Moyo has suggested that the Continuous Assessment of Learning Activities (CALA) may be scrapped entirely and be replaced with another student assessment regime.
Minister Moyo said CALA was implemented haphazardly without teachers undergoing training on how to implement it.
He revealed that the other option under consideration is to reduce the number of CALAs from 27 to 2 or 1.
Minister Moyo made the comments while addressing heads of primary and secondary schools, district school inspectors (DSIs) and education officials at St Columbus High School in Bulawayo on Thursday. He said:
People made submissions on their expectations on CALA, but were the teachers trained on how they can carry out CALA assignments? We had to review the curriculum in its entirety.
We may reduce the number of CALAs probably from 27 to two or one, but before we do that we want you the school heads to be trained on how CALA is conducted, then you train your teachers so that people appreciate CALA or we may decide to remove CALA and replace it with something else.
CALA was introduced in 2021. Under the regime, ZIMSEC candidates’ physical and behavioural skills are assessed continuously (coursework) to contribute 30 per cent to their final marks.
Summative or knowledge skills assessed during examinations contribute 70 per cent to the candidate’s final grade.
CALA’s introduction faced resistance, not only from parents who complained it was costly but also from school heads who objected to the number of projects per learner saying they would overwhelm learners and teachers.
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