BY SIFISO NHLABATSI
NHLANGANO – Eswatini is moving away from outcome- education towards competency-based education, with His Majesty King Mswati III saying the shift is necessary to prepare learners for a rapidly changing world.
The King said this during the 40th graduation ceremony of Ngwane Teachers Training College in Nhlangano yesterday, where 159 graduands were capped.
His Majesty said the world that the graduates were entering was vastly different from the one their own teachers had been trained for, pointing to artificial intelligence, changing labour markets and the rapid growth of information.
“The world our graduates are entering bears little resemblance to the one their own teachers once trained for,” the King said.
He said education had to respond to these changes by producing learners who could think independently and innovate rather than simply memorise information.
“A classroom that asks a child only to remember will not prepare that child for such a world. The classroom must now teach a child to think and be innovative,” he said.
The King commended Government and the Ministry of Education and Training for steering the country’s schools towards competency-based education.
He said the new approach focuses on what learners are capable of doing rather than merely what they can remember or recite.
“This approach asks not merely what a learner can recite, but what a learner can actually do,” His Majesty said.
The King said the move was important in ensuring that education remained relevant to the demands of the modern economy and society.
He also welcomed collaboration between Ngwane Teachers Training College and development partners, including the European Union, in developing an appropriate curriculum.
His Majesty said institutions of learning could not afford to remain static as the needs of the country changed.
He urged the graduating teachers to understand the responsibility that came with their profession, saying every classroom represented an opportunity to prepare the next generation for the future.
“The future of this Kingdom is now placed, quite literally, in your hands, for it will pass first through the minds of the children you teach,” he said.
The King said teachers were entrusted with preparing children to become responsible citizens, leaders and custodians of national values and heritage.
He urged the graduates to combine the knowledge they had acquired with humility, integrity, discipline, compassion and a deep sense of service to the nation.
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