By Shepherd Manhambara

PART ONE outlined how Zimbabwe invested heavily in the education sector from day one of attaining its independence in 1980.
It expanded both its primary and secondary school system so much that today the country enjoys the official distinction of hosting the most literate population in Africa.
But there is also a downside to that success story which, if not addressed as a matter of urgency, is bound to limit development possibilities which a highly literate and educated population is expected to promote for the benefit of everyone.
And tell-tale signs that something is sorely missing somewhere in our education system are there for all those who care to open their eyes!
The last 15 years during which Zimbabwe was isolated by the West and demonised non-stop by the same West for daring to take back its stolen land is also the ideal period to look at in our appraisal of the depth, breadth and orientation of our education system.
Why not when proverbial wisdom insists that the craft of a roof thatcher is often discussed during as well as soon after a downpour?
When Anglo-Saxon tribes and their allies imposed economic sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2002 in order to make its economy scream thousands of Zimbabweans flocked out of the country in search of greener pastures they assumed existed both in Africa and the West.
This kind of emigration is neither new nor unheard of; it has always been an understandable human tendency to look for easier ways to survive in so far as most of us would prefer to fit into a ready-made world created by others instead of directly risking the rigours and responsibilities of shaping and directing the world we live in!
However, the situation becomes different and bothersome when soon after crossing the Limpopo River on their way down south people try as much as possible to erase any traces of their nationality and start living a lie that they are South Africans!
Call it opportunism or strategic adjustment, the process of shedding off some layers of one’s identity says more about the values and norms which shape us from the family right up to the school level.
We just need to look at the Somalis whether they are in Somalia, Britain, Kenya, South Africa or Zimbabwe, they remain themselves unlike some of us Zimbabweans who try to define ourselves according to the prevailing weather at a particular time!
Talk about the British and Americans — their identity is not for sale wherever they are! And the story of the wandering Jew whether rich or poor says a lot about how a Jew is brought up and socialised through lessons from the Tora on how to live as a Jew.
Unfortunately for us, during the last 15 years we witnessed how thousands of our fellow citizens tried hard and for long to hide the fact that they came from Zimbabwe whenever they got admitted into Britain in particular and into Western countries in general.
It is staggering to realise how the majority of those who went to these countries were prepared to lie about the kind of horrible persecution to which the Mugabe government allegedly subjected them — all lies cunningly concocted to acquire an asylum status!
Ironically most of the liars had never been involved in any activities remotely related to politics; they simply narrated to immigration officials what their host nations wanted to hear!
This is one of the most shameful practices which says a lot about our lack of pride in who we are as a people.
Unfortunately when people do not have self-respect no outsider is also prepared to respect them both as a people and a race.
As Zimbabweans we tried too hard to badmouth our country because doing so provided the proverbial thirty pieces of silver!
In doing so we remained oblivious to the long term damage we were inflicting on ourselves, our children and grandchildren.
I recall that during the several years I stayed in Britain and later on in North America I interacted with many Westerners at many levels of familiarity and intimacy — at no time did I come across Westerners who were prepared to badmouth their countries and this includes the poorest who stood to gain least from their social and economic systems!
But when it comes to Zimbabweans we rush to narrate the worst about our country to complete strangers, soiling our image and inflicting the most grievous of damage to our national identity before the whole world.
In this context, the MDC-T with its sell-out politics and shameful relationship with Britain is only a symptom of a deeper problem part of which lies at the heart of our education system which seems to teach self-hatred to most of us!
The question is: What type of education are we imparting to our children which fails to define for us with some depth our primary identity as Zimbabweans?
Put differently we need to define as a matter of national priority the kind of stories we impart to our children at nursery and primary school levels, especially in our urban and semi-urban areas.
It looks like the ba-ba black sheep story dominating our nursery schools is doing much more damage than we care to acknowledge!
This is not to say that we should not expose our children to stories from other countries — far from it, but the question which should not be left to chance is: who is defining the story which gives us our primary identities as people at the infant stage?
It is the indigenous story at the nursery and primary school level which should function as the core or template shaping the identity of our children and it is from that core that we establish a standpoint from which our children can look at stories from the rest of Africa and the world at large.
And by stories we refer not only to nursery rhymes, fables, songs and dances but also to narratives be they fictional or factual which purport to explain our origins and characteristics as a people or nation.
We often marvel at how nine-year olds in the USA and Britain manage to reel out names of their heroes and heroines without batting an eyelid — the secret is to catch them young and expose them to what matters most to the formation of their identities but do so in a way which is entertaining and memorable.
In other words at the heart of the software which informs the minds of our children there should be a core of knowledge which is original and peculiarly Zimbabwean.
Right now most of the minds of our kids are fed colonial stuff as part of the much aspired for Western modernity. The irony in Zimbabwe is that the more educated parents are the more alienated from Africa their children become and the story gets worse up the education ladder!
While it is undeniable that Zimbabwe has made great strides in educating its population, it seems as if we have not paid much attention to the kind of philosophy which underpins our whole education system. Is it therefore surprising that in the absence of an articulated philosophical and or ideological framework it is the ideas and values of our colonial masters which have continued to inform our educational system?
In many ways this is the question which the much talked about but neglected Nziramasanga Report on education was grappling with.