THE education curriculum review that is about to take place spearheaded by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education should be given all the attention that all of us can afford so that we define the future of our country on the basis of where we have come from, where we are and where we want to go as a nation.
First, an outline of the success story that has taken place since 1980.
According to UNESCO statistics, Zimbabwe is home to the most literate population on our continent with a literacy rate of 93 percent.
This success story has taken place in less than 35 years of Zimbabwe’s existence as an independent nation and almost amounts to a miracle.
We recall that before 1980 the British colonial administrations made sure that three quarters of the African population remained illiterate and or semi-literate while education for whites was not only a priority which hogged most resources, but was made compulsory from 1930 onwards.
Today Zimbabwe has become an education powerhouse which has been exporting civil and mechanical engineers, medical doctors, nurses, teachers, lecturers, accountants, economists, bankers, journalists, geologists, administrators, managers, land surveyors, scientists, agricultural experts, technicians etc to almost all Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and beyond.
The brain drain that Zimbabwe has experienced during the past 14 years has been massive and sustained and could have easily brought any country to its knees, forcing it to import foreign expatriates once again, but not Zimbabwe-again a testimony to the depth and breadth of the education system that Zimbabwe has developed since 1980!
Notwithstanding this success story, it is critical to conduct periodic audits of our educational system to determine whether it is still serving us to best advantage. Some of the signs that a review is now necessary are as follows:
a) Production of characters who are more of followers than leaders, and who would rather be employees than employers.
b) Production of students when they complete their secondary school studies, begin to look down upon their African roots and identity and prefer to be white, forgetting they are black!
This ‘coconut syndrome’ of being white inside and black outside is an indication of a deeper psycho-social problem caused by an inherited education system that has remained largely colonial in content and approach.
There is also a need to move away from rote learning, very much part of colonial pedagogy which is, at its best, well known to produce competent mimics rather than creative and original thinkers.
One of the results of all this is that our students end up seeing the world from a Western rather than African point of view.
The danger here is that we end up with students whose ambitions, desires and orientation resemble those of outside tourists and such people cannot be expected to develop a country since the issue of commitment becomes problematic.
One can go on citing more weaknesses of the current curriculum which need to be fixed.
However, because of the pending curriculum review which should be based on a holistic approach some questions arise.
Some of these that immediately come to the fore are:
a) Should the educational review introduce more subjects and or reduce the number, if so, to achieve what?
b) Is the review meant to re-balance the curriculum so as to address certain current biases which prejudice some if not most of our students-if so in what way and how?
c) Should the review in general attempt to broaden and deepen the whole curriculum in such a way that it accommodates the needs, interests, aptitudes, talents and ambitions of more students than is currently the case?
If so, how practical and implementable will this be?
If indeed all the above stated questions are relevant, in what way should these be linked to an overall national vision which attempts to define what our country should be, let us say in 40 years time!
For example, if we agree that Zimbabwe should become an industrial powerhouse thriving on beneficiation of its agricultural products and abundant minerals, a country full of enterprising and business savvy people capable of holding their own when dealing with the larger world, this has serious implications on the kind of curriculum that the country should come up with!
In other words, there is a need to link the curriculum review to a shared national vision, however, sketchy and inadequate this vision might appear right now!
In this context the vision becomes the destination while the curriculum becomes the route-cum-methodology that should be followed in order to arrive at the preferred destination.
Reading from comments so far expressed in our media, it is obvious that quite a hefty chunk of people are for a curriculum which opens up a clear-cut path for those whose talents and aptitudes are for practical skills in specific areas of training and specialisation vis-a-vis the largely bookish bias the current curriculum has!
There is also a favourable attitude towards the need to expose our students to the realities and demands of work-places out there always in need of more skills and expertise which the next generation should provide.
Already it is noticeable that at the university level, the National University of Science and Technology and the Midlands State University have already recognised the need for student exposure to the real world of work and have spearheaded the incorporation of this practical element into their curricula.
Again there are tell-tale signs that the University of Zimbabwe might soon follow this route and significantly increase the duration of the attachment component to some of their degree programmes so as to match if not exceed what other universities in the country have already done.
It is therefore logical to revisit the primary and secondary school curriculum to see which areas need adjustment and realignment in accordance with the demands of a rapidly changing world.
However, what has not been coming through clearly and forcefully in the ongoing preliminary debate about the pending curriculum review is the orientation cum-perspective that our education system should adopt.
This is the missing link which the Nziramasanga Report on education studiously avoided like the plague and which, if not addressed properly and adequately, will continue to cause havoc to the minds and dreams of current and future generations!