HomeOld_PostsRevisit education curriculum

Revisit education curriculum

Published on

AS Zimbabwe goes all out to empower the people by indigenising the economy, another area which needs urgent attention is that of education.

We are proud that our country has a highly educated population with a literacy rate of 92 percent, which is the highest in Africa.

We are afraid that high literacy alone is not enough.

For after 90 years of British rule, the colonialists had used their education system to replace our values and culture with their own.

Mental colonialism became complete through films, literature, media, schools etc.

Anything African, be it names, games, language, religion was considered primitive through the kind of education devised by the colonialists in schools.

Our heroes in history became people like Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Hannibal and even Oliver Cromwel.

There was an attempt which was well received during the liberation struggle by ‘comrades’ to glorify our own heroes in liberated areas.

Villagers became proud to be associated with heroes like Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi, Chief Chingaira, Chief Mapondera and Chief Mashayamombe among others.

After independence in 1980 there was a conscious attempt to get as many people as possible educated.

The results were phenomenal.

While in 1979 there were 820 000 pupils enrolled in primary schools, by 1998 the enrollment had ballooned to two-and-a-half million.

Regrettably there was not as much effort to realign the education curriculum with the reality on the ground.

In an earlier series in this publication, Dr Irene Mahamba says that efforts to transform the curriculum at independence collapsed after those efforts were sabotaged.

There is credence in her claims since our education has continued to be theory based, elitist and continues to look down on extramural activities like sports, theatre and music, among others.

It is still Eurocentric, as African values including languages and nationalistic thinking are denigrated, with ‘nosing’ accepted as the in-thing by our youngsters.

That is why, as we have already pointed out in an earlier edition, people like Professor Geoff Feltoe at the University of Zimbabwe, are continuously churning out lawyers who cannot mould their thinking in Zimbabwe’s historical context.

Douglas Mwonzora, Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube are good examples.

Recently President Mugabe was lamenting why blacks who seem enlightened by education were those at the forefront at selling out.

These are the very people who are the leading regime change agents through non-governmental agents.

There is therefore something wrong with our education system.

But surely, how can we be considered to be serious with our education when 30 years after independence we still had a former Selous Scout like David Coltart as our minister of both the country’s education and culture.

And yet by now we would have gone a long way in transforming our education if we had paid heed to the Nziramasanga Commission.

The Commission recommended that secondary school education be transformed from a colonial, elitist and theoretical approach.

The Commission also recommends the inclusion in the curriculum of practical subjects like agriculture, gardening, carpentry, building etc.

That is why we believe the introduction of the Ministry of State for Liaising on Psychomotor Activities in Education was a master stroke.

True, there have been tentative attempts to introduce these practical subjects at some schools.

This time we hope Cde Josiah Hungwe, is going to make sure all the cobwebs are dusted off the Nziramasanga Commission report and all schools go for this practical approach the whole hog.

Finally, we expect all syllabuses to be revisited to adequately cover values such as indigenisation, empowerment, development and employment.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading