FOR me, coming from the struggle and being assigned to the National Curriculum Development Unit at Mt Pleasant by Dr Dzingai Mutumbuka, the then Minister of Education in 1980, was more than a dream come true.
As a member of the Research Team of the ZANU Education Department at Matenje Base in Mozambique, this was momentous because it was an opportunity to implement the changes we had long planned.
There were many other comrades in the Research Unit, such as the late Cde Garwe who headed the team, Cde Matina his deputy as well as others who were eager to get on with curriculum transformation and bring Zimbabwe’s independence to the classroom to ensure the values and ethos of the liberation struggle lived into the future.
We set out to transform the curriculum; to develop new syllabi, review textbooks that were in use in schools and more fundamentally, to write teaching and learning materials to the new syllabi, which was a radical departure from the colonial practice whereby the ministry produced the syllabi and asked commercial publishers to write for them.
In transforming the curriculum, the emphasis had to be on the ideological axis of the curriculum.
The ideological axis had to dethrone capitalism, its ownership relations of the means of production and its ethos, the individualism, selfishness and exploitative mindset, the curriculum had to positively reflect the collective consciousness which was the direct result of the armed struggle, born of the collective and selfless commitment to liberate the country even at one’s peril.
The moral, ethical and aesthetic attitudes, values and feelings needed to reflect patriotism, self-sacrifice and commitment to build a Zimbabwe for all.
One of our most illustrious works as a unit was our collaborative effort in the form of the School Atlas for Zimbabwe.
It was a window through which subject teams showcased their work.
It was momentous.
The pictures we used in the Atlas were not some archive material we resurrected from somewhere, we actually went out with personnel from the Ministry of Information into the countryside to take pictures, so that when we wrote about the strides Government was making in providing health facilities as near as possible to each person in the rural areas, we were actually at the facility taking pictures of the health activities in progress.
The School Atlas for Zimbabwe is one of CDU’s highlights of the 80s.
We designed it and Esselte Map Service of Sweden printed it.
The paper quality was excellent; it was durable and aesthetically pleasing.
The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) also provided the ministry with funds to distribute the Atlases to schools across the country.
At the level of subject teams, individual teams made strides to various degrees.
The Creative Writing Team led by Professor Micere Githae Mugo came up with supplementary reading materials so that each child in the rural areas especially, could have something to read and enjoy in the absence of libraries which in the colonial era were a preserve of the privileged.
These were materials written to entertain and teach.
The materials were written about the ordinary lives of Zimbabweans, their joys, their sorrows, life as it is lived ‘kumusha/ekhaya’ and everywhere else in Zimbabwe.
Spectacular among its creations was the Chimurenga Series, a magnificent effort to bring to each Zimbabwean child, stories from and about the liberation struggle.
The African languages team weighed in with their Nhapi-tapi series which popularised ‘Chishona Kutapira’ throughout the country.
Satellite units of the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) were established in cities such as Bulawayo to cater for Venda, Shangaan and other languages spoken by the smaller ethnic groups in the country.
Geography teaching and learning also transformed, abandoning the traditional approach to Geography and casting the subject into a critical geo-political framework.
In addition to the School Atlas for Zimbabwe which the Geography team produced in collaboration with other subject teams, it also published a new map of the world and a globe which portrayed the world as it was then, clearly acknowledging the socialist world as it was spread across the globe.
Esselte Map Service printed the maps and globes and SIDA still paid for the printing as well as for their delivery to each school in the country.
In social studies and history, we turned everything upside down.
For the first time in the school system we wrote about Mbuya Nehanda and Kaguvi as the heroes they are, and Cecil John Rhodes as the villain he is.
Years later I taught a class in which we were discussing Allan Wilson’s role in the colonisation of Zimbabwe, and the pupils protested that they no longer wanted to learn at a school named Allan Wilson.
They suggested that the school be renamed Tongogara High.
These young Zimbabweans were only able to arrive at this kind of reflection after being exposed to the new history curriculum.
We exposed the chicanery and betrayal of the Rudd Concession.
It no longer was the Zimbabwe Ruins, but we wrote of a Great Zimbabwe that told of a magnificent history.
Zimbabwean children could also learn about Zimbabwe in the context of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), now Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) now African Union (AU).
The Ordinary Level History Syllabus 2166 taught the scientific laws that govern the development and of human society, a radical departure from the capitalist conception of history as accidental events, it demanded of the students, critical thinking skills, imagination, empathy and reflection.
In political economy we exposed the young ones to what is meant by “Tinoda Zimbabwe neupfumi hwayo hwose.”
The technical subject teams abandoned the F1, F2 system in favour of a polytechnical approach which recognises the essential link between theory and practice in mainstream education. Religious Studies took on indigenous elements and also examined how these enriched Christianity, it also incorporated other faiths in addition to Christianity.
We did not know how much this new thrust we were introducing threatened and riled some people so that as we celebrated, they no longer slept.
And by 1989, our work was under attack.
One morning, piles of the Chimurenga Series booklets we had compiled over the years were collected by Hunyani Paper Mills for shredding.
And political economy units mysteriously disappeared from the store-room and the curriculum developers were dispersed through dismissal, lateral transfer to other departments or were frustrated until they resigned.
By 1994 nothing remained.
And a year or so later, the ministry commissioned Dr Nziramasanga to work out the parameters of a new education curriculum and in 1999, he came up with a design that completely left out the fact and the recognition that the freedom the country enjoys came after a blood-bath with our former colonisers.