IN the last article we reviewed my experience at a School Careers Day in Chitungwiza where ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level examination candidates for 2015 and their teachers seemed to be unaware of the link between school subjects and agriculture, both as an academic discipline and a career option.
All school subjects are linked one way and another to agriculture, which itself is a central pillar of our country’s economy.
The greatest challenge facing our education system appears to be the lack of a science focus.
This in itself indicates that we as Zimbabweans have not as yet defined the long-term vision for our country.
We want to be a technologically advanced rich country whose citizens enjoy the highest possible standards of living.
We want to be a peaceful country, but able to defend our independence and sovereignty.
To achieve all that we need to systematically build our economy through exploiting our natural resources in a sustainable way.
To achieve our development goals we need science.
The science must be home-grown.
Even when technology is imported it must be domesticated.
For example, if we import gadgets with light emitting diodes for example, we should develop our local capacity through copying and adapting.
Down the line we then do not need to keep importing these simple gadgets; we produce them locally and also export to bring in much-needed foreign exchange.
To do that, our educated population must use science to build industry.
Importing implements and equipment is a short-term measure as we build local capacity.
Zimbabwe trains a lot of technocrats; it must put them to work on the country’s development.
The culture of relying on outside consultants must gradually give way to engaging local experts; they are good because they are the ones currently running the economies of neighbouring countries.
Zimbabweans must believe in themselves.
The universities and technical colleges must shed their ivory tower image and go to the people to help solve their development challenges.
Question is: Are we building local capacity to manufacture, repair and service the equipment that we use in our industry?
Are our universities engaged in research to solve our economic challenges?
If not what is the purpose of these higher institutions of learning?
Are the educational institutions there so people get academic degrees based on theory and go about boasting that they are ‘highly educated’ when they cannot change the fuse in a pressing iron or cannot build a compost heap with household residues to generate ‘fertiliser’ for the garden?
In America they have what are called ‘land grant’ state universities whose purpose is to generate the knowledge and technologies and impart skills that drive the local industries.
America still boasts that they feed the world.
The agricultural knowledge and technologies are all generated in the universities.
The technologies driving their industries all the way from manufacturing popcorn to sending rockets to Mars and the moon are developed through applied research by university professors and their students.
Each doctorate degree thesis is registered and lodged with their national security department in Washington.
Such high level knowledge is considered to be a national asset of strategic importance.
What value do we in Zimbabwe put to our college degrees?
In Zimbabwe university degrees are highly regarded, not so much for their utility value in terms of providing knowledge to solve societal problems, but for the prestige they bring to the holder.
Degree holders are held in high esteem even if they have never contributed anything to solve local challenges.
They are also immune from physical work!
If someone is touted as being educated just ask: What is he educated in?
“Akafundei?”
If, as is the case now across most of Zimbabwe’s economic sectors, the so-called educated have little or nothing to contribute to solve our pressing problems, then their education was irrelevant and a waste of time and resources!
It is time to re-think our higher education curricula too!
We have endemic food insecurity partly blamed on climate variability.
What are the local agricultural scientists doing about the situation?
What appropriate research is underway to address this threat to our national security?
Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and donor-funded projects can be cited, but projects by their nature are short-lived!
To put it bluntly, the country cannot be developed by projects; we need long-term well thought out strategies.
Get the universities to work on these and other problems.
We cannot afford to educate people for social esteem; we need practical skills and functional knowledge.
Let me repeat what one American professor said to me as we sweated it out setting up research trials on farmers’ fields in North Carolina.
“If the science we do in the university does not translate into increased productivity on the farms, then we might as well close the concerned departments,” he said.
Our Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Professor Jonathan Moyo is on record expressing serious concern about low numbers of students in universities with a ‘science and technology’ mandate.
The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-ASSET) agenda is focussed on building sustainable components of our economy.
To build a science-based economy, we need citizens who are scientifically literate.
Our education prepares people to service existing colonial-based systems.
We can contrast Zimbabwe with Singapore.
At independence, Singapore had very little by way of natural resources or trained manpower.
They adopted a Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) focus in their education curriculum.
Their first leader at independence, Lee Kuan Yew is reported to have been adamant that Singaporeans learn science and mathematics.
Today Singapore has a diversified technology-based economy and is among the top six richest countries in the world.
There is an example for Zimbabwe to emulate.
The colonial system requires teachers to teach and increase literacy among the population.
Ability to read and write ensures workers who can read and follow instructions, write reports to their superiors and communicate verbally.
This explains the obsession with English language in our education system.
The Zimbabwean Diaspora is mostly located in the English-speaking countries that include ‘mother’ Britain, United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Zimbabwean nurses, teachers, engineers and agricultural scientists constitute a significant proportion of the technocrat class in the English-speaking world.
Zimbabweans actually pride themselves in this ability to ‘fit’ into these foreign countries while their own country is seriously short of scientific and other technocrats.
Who will build our economy if the educated are not fully engaged?
None, but ourselves will build Zimbabwe into an economic giant,
The struggle for economic emancipation continues!