By Dr Ireen Mahamba

IT has been 33 years since Zimbabwe became Independent.
If a child still can no longer be at peace in their learning in this land, then we too have not made it.
It is our responsibility to ensure that each Zimbabwean child be at home in the process of learning; it is not permissible that our children should fail to sing their song in the process of learning as if they still are learning under Ian Smith and his racist colonial regime.
Ko vakafira rusununguko rweZimbabwe vakagofireyi?
A father felt saddened about his daughter’s experiences at a private school in Zimbabwe.
“Do you know what our children learn in these private schools?
“I didn’t know until my daughter told me.
“We send our children to school and we take it everything is normal, it is not.
“The syllabi might be the same as those prescribed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, but the way the topics are handled, the way they are interpreted can be so different from the original intent.”
He explained to me how the Slave Trade was taught to his daughter, that the topic was treated as if European slave traders were not so culpable since the Africans themselves were busy selling each other.
I followed this up with another pupil from another private school, who also explained to me that the issue of who was to blame for slavery in Africa was not dealt with so conclusively, the learners were left to make up their own minds who was to blame.
I would agree that if the teaching has been done well, yes, this is possible, but still the teacher should be able to give guidance.
The father had also been concerned that the colonisation of Zimbabwe had not been handled accurately, that it had been presented from the perspective of the colonizers and their West European forefathers.
What the daughter revealed with respect to this, was that right from ZJC they had no syllabus from the Ministry, they did not follow any prescribed texts and the teachers themselves wrote the teaching and learning materials which in her own estimation did not have much depth.
At ZJC they learned about the great explorers, such as David Livingstone, the man who ‘discovered’ the Victoria Falls.
She was amazed that he was presented as the first man to see the great Falls.
At ‘O’ Level they did not study any history of Zimbabwe but they still learned about the great discoverers such as Thomas Cook, they certainly did not learn about the liberation struggle, they were not given any books about the liberation struggle, but there was a book on the explorers.
There were only two paragraphs on the liberation struggle, and they were never examined on these.
She emphasizsd that they did not do any African history, at ‘O’ or ‘A’ Level, but that they studied the Cold War, the Second World War at ‘O’ level and at ‘A’ Level, such topics as American History.
In her opinion this was not right, they should have been studying something relevant to Zimbabwe, and she says this explains why half the ‘A’ Level history class failed this year.
This scenario is not difficult to imagine since schools have the option to follow Cambridge or ZIMSEC syllabi.
At her school, they mostly follow Cambridge syllabi.
In her analysis part of the problem of is that most of the teachers are old whites who are quite incapable, but she was glad that things were changing as the school was now hiring former government teachers who are more capable and open minded.
She said that the only material she has learned about Zimbabwe was outside the formal school syllabi at the initiative of a new black teacher who is quite interested, competent and knowledgeable about Zimbabwe.
She also reads a lot outside classes to learn more about Zimbabwe, she added.
This young girl is not alone, this parent is not alone and this school is not a lone rebel.
So, what about the national agenda?
Are we raising heirs of Zimbabwe this way?
Each Zimbabwean child has a right to learn what is correct for themselves as heirs of Zimbabwe, there is no school that has a right to deny our children their heritage.
If our children do not feel so good about themselves at the end of the day, if they do not feel so special as Zimbabweans, then what good is it? What will we have achieved, and what will they achieve?
When we were under British rule, we sang, ‘God Save Our Gracious Queen’ every morning at assembly.
Do young Zimbabweans sing our national anthem everyday at assembly?
How can children of Zimbabwe, a nation born out of a protracted war of liberation not learn about this struggle?
Yakazvarwa nemoto weChimurenga.
How can it be allowed that they do not learn about their origins?
This does not happen anywhere , the Americans never stop talking of their victory over the British in their war of Independence, never mind that the country belonged to the ‘Red Indians’ in the first place; but our children are made to study American history.
Can we truly say ‘Aluta!’
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.