HomeOld_PostsHow to teach our children to be heirs of Zimbabwe: Part Thirteen

How to teach our children to be heirs of Zimbabwe: Part Thirteen

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By Dr Ireen Mahamba

WE continue with our discussion with Cde E. Chitofu, a founding member of the ZANU Education Department in Mozambique, the director of its Research Unit until Independence and the current director of the Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production.
“Instead of the traditional five ‘0’ Levels, I would make agriculture compulsory for all schools in Zimbabwe because there is no-one who does not want to eat,” he emphasised.
He refuted the claim that city schools cannot do agriculture because they do not have land.
“The land is ours; there is no reason why we cannot allocate a few hectares to each school,” he said.
“Why do we educate our children as if we are in transit to somewhere else, this is home, we have nowhere else.
“Why don’t we settle down and properly educate our children, give them land and teach them to work for and build their country, where are we rushing?
“All schools have buses and or trucks, these can ferry students to and from their fields, and on the way back, they can munch the carrots they will have grown, literally enjoying the fruits of their labour.”
Cde Chitofu recalled visiting a school he formerly headed in Manicaland, only to find that it had deteriorated to the extent that some windowpanes were missing. When he asked the headmaster if windowpanes were so expensive, the head lamented that the parents were unwilling to part with their money.
Cde Chitofu suggested that the school start a banana plantation; today the school is flourishing from banana sales.
The parents may be unwilling to give the school some money, but they are willing to buy bananas, so is the community.
I asked Cde Chitofu if he envisaged a ZIMFEP university.
“Each person who has an ability can take it to the highest heights, without being constrained by certain requirements, such as ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level; once they have the ability and insights into the field of study, they should be enabled to take it to the highest levels,” he said.
“Some skills are already in an individual without much schooling, this should be recognised.
“There are electricians, mechanics, hairdressers and other skillful people who have done very well without much schooling.
“Our sculptors have generated a business that rakes in millions of dollars without the aid of traditional schooling, the same is true of our musicians such as Oliver Mutukudzi, they never went to the University of Music.”
He emphasised that these abilities can be tracked in children from the very early ages and developed.
“When children are gifted in a certain area, they are very interested in it,” he said. “They like pursuing it at home, at school, and outside school hours.
“Once identified the potential should be encouraged and nurtured, not discouraged because it may not fit into the traditional schooling programme.”
These intelligences if encouraged and nurtured they prosper, but they can also weaken if ignored; the Multiple Intelligence theory explains.
Thus, a prodigy in music can scale the heights if born in a musical family or the intelligence can go undetected if they are raised in an environment without the relevant stimulus.
“At the end of the day education with production is the most democratic form of education because whoever has what ability is catered for, no one feels inferior because they are labeled unintelligent as the fallacy goes,” said Cde Chitofu.
“Each person is capable of something and they are credited for it, so they feel worthwhile. Democracy in education with production also arises out of the practice of planning and executing productive activities together and, equitably sharing the proceeds from the collective productive work; this is the nucleus of democracy in society.
“A product of education with production will feel oppressed by undemocratic structures, and so will seek to create democratic institutions, in this manner, the whole society eventually becomes democratic.”
His explanation makes clear that traditionalist education creates dropouts by selecting and ratifying certain intelligences and ignoring the rest.
No one is born a drop out.
It is this system which is undemocratic.
God’s bountifulness does not leave anyone out, the so-called failures are not inherently so, they are man made.
Cde Chitofu had a smile on his face when we discussed The Zimbabwe National Integrated Teacher Education Course (ZINTEC).
“It is the best companion for our schools, it is the exact fit for our schools,” he said.
“Because ZINTEC is based on the concept of education with production, ZIMFEP graduates share the same ethos, so they are best placed to understand it better than any other school graduates, to appreciate its goals and to do justice to them. In a way, one would say that ZINTEC colleges are what ZIMFEP teachers’ colleges would be.
That both ZIMFEP schools and ZINTEC are based on the concept of education with production is by design; they both are products of the philosophy of education developed during the liberation struggle. ZINTEC is modeled on the teacher education course developed by the ZANU Education Department Research Unit during the liberation struggle.
During the struggle, teacher trainees attended an initial eight-week induction on the fundamentals to teaching and learning, followed by four weeks intensely supervised teaching practice, concluded by another eight-week course; effectively integrating theory and practice, and departing from the traditional courses, which restricted student teachers to theory for years.
In 1981, this revolutionary course gave birth to ZINTEC. In ZINTEC, the first 16 weeks of the first year were devoted to the theoretical foundations of teaching and learning, after which the students were deployed to schools until the last 16 weeks of the fourth year ( in 1988 the 16 weeks were increased to 32 for both residential sessions).
While they were in the field, the trainees received more modules, participated in seminars/workshops; their lecturers assisted by the schools supervised them during this period.
The students thus integrated theory and practice throughout their training.
As they grappled with the challenges of teaching, they applied the theory they had learned and as they reflected on this, they were better able to inform their teaching.
So they learned as they worked and what they learned helped them improve their teaching.
Inevitably, this kind of graduate has greater mastery of the art of teaching and learning than those sequestered in colleges for years.
One never ceases to marvel at the wisdom that guided the liberation struggle and the amazing solutions that emerged to solve the nation’s problems.
ZINTEC not only produced better quality teachers, but like its predecessor, moulded teachers with a socialist orientation, who fully appreciated the need to teach students that labour is the source of all wealth and also, that they need to serve the community because the purpose of education is to develop society and not self-aggrandisement.
Sadly, ‘something happened on the way to heaven’, ZINTEC is no more.
Nothing that the liberation struggle identified as useful for Zimbabwe’s education was lost, it was all brought home; it is necessary to continue with the transformation that started during the liberation struggle, for it is just what the doctor ordered.
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.

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