Manzini – The Swaziland National Association of Teachers has called on the Ministry of Education and Training to develop digital schemes and record books for teachers implementing the competency-based education curriculum at primary school level, saying the country’s education system must keep pace with the demands of Industry 4.0.
The call comes as the ministry has begun rolling out new CBE scheme books for primary school teachers, a development SNAT welcomed as a massive and long overdue project.
However, the teachers’ body says the new scheme books should not simply replicate what was done on paper. SNAT is calling for lesson planning to move fully to digital platforms, and for the traditional three-quire feint and margin books to be discarded entirely. 
The platform argues that physical media, including paper documents, physical storage and traditional file systems, have largely given way to digital formats in the modern world, and that workspaces now exist primarily in virtual ecosystems. Integrating information and communications technology into teaching and learning, SNAT says, is no longer just about replacing paper with screens but about fundamentally transforming how teachers teach and how learners engage with content.
SNAT said the Ministry of Education and Training should be leading the way in foundational technologies that continue to evolve rapidly, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3D printing, cloud and edge computing, blockchain, and virtual and augmented reality.
The association also called on the ministry to support teachers through continuous professional development to implement differentiated instruction in classrooms, helping learners build 21st century skills such as digital literacy, media fluency, critical thinking and global collaboration.
SNAT added that embracing these innovations would free up valuable time and energy for teachers, allowing them to focus on giving individualised support to students with learning difficulties and special educational needs, in line with the SAMR model of technology integration in education.
The new CBE scheme book, whose foreword was included in SNAT’s post, was developed to support teachers, learners and schools as Eswatini shifts from objective-based learning to competency-based education, drawing from the Eswatini National Curriculum Framework for General Education of 2018 and the National Education and Training Sector Policy of 2018.
SNAT said it hopes the digital approach will eventually be rolled out across all levels of the school system.
