A government proposal to make Chinese, French, Portuguese and Kiswahili compulsory in Zimbabwe’s state-run schools is causing an uproar in a country already strained by a drain of teachers to South Africa, RFI reports.

English, Shona and Ndebele are the official languages of Zimbabwe, with 13 other local languages used throughout the country.

The new curriculum proposal, which awaits cabinet approval, is basically crazy, says Rejoice Ngwenya, who heads up Comaliso, a Harare-based public policy think tank.

“I would say for a country that is struggling to pay existing civil servants, this is rank madness,” Ngwenya told RFI.

Upgrading the curriculum follows complaints from various stakeholders that Zimbabwe’s educational system needs to be aligned with changing global trends, Xinua reported in a SpyGhana report. The new curriculum will be biased towards teaching science, vocational and technical skills.

With Zimbabwe’s political isolation from the European Union, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe placed great importance on the country’s relations with China. For years, China was described as the “only major international supporter” of Zimbabwe due to its principles of non interference in internal affairs such as human rights issues, according to a 2005 JamestownFoundation report.

Shunned by Western governments long critical of Mugabe, and funding institutions such as the World Bank because it failed to repay more than $10 billion in debt, Zimbabwe looked to China for financial help, the NewZimbabwe reported.

In addition to adding compulsory languages, the proposed new curriculum changes include examining agriculture at primary education level and teaching pure sciences starting in Form One.

Zimbabwe has lost a large number of its qualified teachers to neighboring South Africa, where many emigrated to pursue better-paying teaching jobs, according to RFI.

The government has been talking about cutting down on employment costs, Ngwenya said. “…to imagine that at one particular government school you will have a French, a Chinese, a Kiswahili teacher. I mean, it’s totally unthinkable,” he said.

Earnest Mudzengi, director of the Zimbabwe Media Centre and a part-time teacher at Zimbabwe Open University, said Chinese, French, Portuguese and Kiswahili won’t benefit everyone.

“Traditionally, people have been learning English, yes, Portuguese, yes, there have been some private institutions that speak Portuguese. And I know that Chinese has also been introduced at the university level. But to make it compulsory, I think it’s unfair. Let people learn those languages out of their own volition,” he told RFI.

The government is piling more requirements on students at the risk of losing their own national heritage, Ngwenya said.

There’s already a problem teaching quality Ndebele in the Mashonaland area. The idea of teaching Chinese, French, Portuguese and Kiswahili to young school students “is a noble idea but it needs to be introduced cautiously…the overall investment, the human capital that is going to be involved is massive.”

One positive aspect of the proposed new curriculum is students will now learn the history of Zimbabwe, which wasn’t really happening before, said Obert Masaraure, president of the Rural Teachers of Zimbabwe.

“At the end of the day, we have people who know a lot about the history of China, the history of England, the history of America, but there is very little knowledge of the history of their own country,” Masaraure told RFI. “We believe that our curriculum as a country should be able to shape the people of Zimbabwe.”