THOSE who fought us ruthlessly, relentlessly when we introduced ‘Political Economy’ as a subject in our secondary schools (1990-1995), must be smiling all the way to the bank, all the way to Chatham House, celebrating a mission well accomplished.
Those who fought us over the years so that ‘Education with Production’ would not be the approach to teaching and learning in every school, are also smiling all the way to the bank; their cup must be overflowing with accolades from Chatham House.
The churches who fought us relentlessly over the introduction of Political Economy in our secondary schools must be celebrating that the destiny they desire for the children of Zimbabwe is unfolding; for isn’t it the reason they now distribute lunches to Harare’s ‘street boys and men’.
That is the destiny they fought so harshly, so cruelly, to create for our young; the destiny of beggars, vagabonds and hobos.
And that is the very destiny the Government of Zimbabwe wanted to avoid; by teaching our children Political Economy so they would know and understand their destiny, so they would be mobilised to claim and work for it.
Those who fought us relentlessly, ruthlessly so that our universities would not be the genesis of our industries and insisted they remain citadels of the elite — barren and fruitless, divorced from reality, from production — must be celebrating a task well accomplished.
No thanks to all these who fought us relentlessly, viciously, our streets and communities are flooded with vagabonds and vagrants, who would steal from you in broad daylight, who would break into your home as a matter of course, who curse everything so special our ancestors nurtured over the years, who no longer represent who we are as a people (vasisina unhu zvachose), who would rather commit crime than eat of the sweat of their brow.
They are a menace to society and they are not apologetic about it.
This is the situation the founding fathers of Zimbabwe fought to prevent when they crafted an education system that would be based on production.
For this, they set up the Foundation for Education with Production (ZIMFEP) as soon after independence (1981), to pioneer this approach to education which had already taken shape during the liberation struggle in both Mozambique and Zambia.
Once education with production had taken root, it would be spread to the rest of the schools in the nation.
But it never went beyond the pioneer stage, it never spread to the rest of the nation’s schools.
The ZIMFEP schools flourished and produced the desired results, but the wall between them and the rest of the nation’s schools was more impregnable than the wall between East and West Germany, it never fell.
Today we have millions of school leavers who are milling around.
Some have become hoodlums or vagrants while others are cheap labour south of us.
There are those with degrees but cannot use them in any way to create a livelihood for themselves and their communities or nation.
Saka toti takaitei?
This is the measure of the success of education that is divorced from production.
Had they learned political economy in school, they would not be in that dire situation.
They would know that labour is the source of all human livelihood, that there is nothing shameful or demeaning in getting their piece of land and working it for their benefit and that of the nation.
They would know that to secure the nation’s means of livelihood, they have to control the means of creating wealth — land and minerals — just as the British did when they invaded our country more than a century ago.
Knowing this, our youth would fight to be entrepreneurs, to set up industries and to set up mining ventures.
Our mining engineers would not be waiting for someone to employ them, they would know they hold the key to something very special; so would our agricultural engineers.
Our children would opt for degrees and certificates that have to do with production, with industry, with control of the economy.
But no, Political Economy was wrested out of their hands!
It was slowly obliterated over five years and finally, when it was withdrawn from the schools, a small paragraph was tucked in the corner of The Herald, proclaiming that the subject had been withdrawn because those who had developed it had not done it properly.
Who are these people?
Is it the national subject panel which was made up of representatives of all stakeholders, including the universities, teachers and technical colleges, the education regions, school heads and teachers; is it the materials’ writers and workshop facilitators who included accomplished professionals such as Comrade July Moyo, a veteran politician, social scientist and economist, a former governor who has held several ministerial posts, the Honourable Justice Ben Hlatshwayo, who was then teaching law at the University of Zimbabwe, or is it Professor Micere Githae Mugo, a renowned revolutionary intellectual who already was doing illustrious work for the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU), or maybe Comrade Cain Mathema, the current Resident Minister of Matabeleland North, maybe Dr Rene Loewenson, is it the then chief education officer for curriculum, B.S.M. Gatawa, a veteran educationist or is it the subject team leader, Dr Ireen Mahamba who had worked in CDU for 10 years and had just completed her (Ed. M) Masters’ Degree in Curriculum Teaching and Learning Environments.
If they had done a poor job, how had it not been picked up and corrected at the various stages of the development of the subject.
The Ministry did approve the syllabus, the teaching and learning materials, and it was through a Ministry circular which introduced the subject into schools.
All this means the Ministry was satisfied with the quality of the subject material from inception to introduction into the schools.
And does it matter that it was the most popular subject in the curriculum, the only subject for which teachers were prepared to pay their own travel and subsistence to Political Economy workshops whenever the Ministry failed to accommodate everybody, or are these teachers not part of the equation?
The universities have stayed clear of courses that have to do with production, with generating productive enterprises.
The various disciplines should have given rise to productive enterprises, to factories, apprenticing students to production as they learn, the universities would have developed into industrial hubs, powered by the marriage between theory, practice and production.
With Education with Production from crèche to university, there would be no vagabonds on our streets and communities, we would not be losing fine young men and women to do menial tasks across the border, we would not be selling our graduates to the highest bidder, they would remain masters in their country, in their nation.
Those who fought so viciously against Political Economy and Education with Production sleep well now; their sleep had been disturbed by the liberation struggle, but their restful nights have returned.
Solomon Mutsvairo’s eulogy to Mbuya Nehanda still cries for an answer.
She still cries for her grandchildren who still have to come into their own as heirs of Zimbabwe: “Vanodya vachiguta, vane pokurara, vakabata ufumi hwenyika yavo mumaoko avo vachikwanisa kuzviriritira ivo, nemhuri dzavo, nenyika yavo.”
In rejecting these liberating transformations, our enemies have carefully cultivated the seed that Rhodes planted; that sons of the soil should always be his slaves, slaves of the whiteman, indebted to him who stole their all and this at last would give Rhodes restful nights, except that he laid himself where no rest can be found for luciferian invaders.
As they drive around our streets and children beg, as they go all over the countryside and see restless youths, their eyes light up with joy for it is as they hoped, as they fought for. Zimbabwe is dry tinder for social unrest; they think, they trust.
Evan Mawarire and fellow sell outs found out the hard way; that Zimbabwe is made of stone, it is not so easy to subvert for it’s foundations are enduring.