By Lisa Nyanhongo

GOVERNMENT has disregarded parents’ requests to scrap the controversial Continuous Assessment Learners Activities (CALA) the schools curricula and instead introduced more modules.

Speaking at parliament’s portfolio committee on education meeting Thursday, acting Bulawayo provincial education director (PED) Olika Kaira said: “The ministry was able to spearhead the introduction of the new assessment framework which has the continuous assessment element,” Kaira said.

“However, owing to the disturbances due to Covid-19, the number of CALA  components had to be reduced from five to three for the 2021 examination candidates but from this year onwards we plan to revert to  five as per the assessment framework.”

CALA was introduced in 2015 by the then education minister Lazarus Dokora.

It was received with disgruntlement by parents who felt the program was expensive and ill-conceived.

Since the introduction, parents have forked out large sums of  money for projects.

A petition was even signed by parents for the CALA to be scrapped, to no avail.