THE furious reaction by NewsDay to Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora’s proposal for pupils to salute the national flag and recite a pledge of patriotism everyday is a reminder of how poor the country’s current curriculum is that even journalists fail to grasp key tenets of national unity and development.
Zimbabwean education, despite being acclaimed as one of the best on the continent, has been lacking the crucial infusion of patriotic values; a glaring insufficiency in a curriculum that has been clamouring for reform in the past few years.
The same paucity has equally been visible in the calibre of graduates the country’s universities have been producing over the years; an anomaly The Patriot highlighted a few years ago as the root of the current problems eating into our systems.
This is the question that Dokora was trying to solve when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Arts Sport and Culture last week.
“The proposed curriculum review will include introduction of a national school pledge for the infant school module, junior and secondary school to instill values of pride to be Zimbabweans,” Dokora said.
Zimbabwe’s education, while it is glittering on producing some of the best brains in the world, it is woefully short on producing patriots.
“If people challenge it (the proposal), I am willing to stand by it,” Dokora said.
“Other jurisdictions like America have a school pledge and every day they recite it.
“We should not doubt that our children should stand by their country.
“America has children of diverse cultures and even they salute the American flag.”
A curriculum that fuses the country’s liberation war history, patriotism, self-help skills, unity and development with academic prowess is the tonic for Zimbabwe’s anticipated development.
There is nothing wrong with pupils saluting the national flag and reciting a pledge of patriotism to their country.
Loving the country is not about ZANU PF alone as the MDC and their cousins in the civil society will say when they oppose Dokora’s proposal.
It is about cherishing and loving the country outside the boundaries of political affiliation.
For any country, infusing patriotism into their children is the absolute pinnacle.
That makes any potential denial of that proposal all the more strange.
Nobukatsu Fujioka, an associate professor of philosophy at Waseda University’s School of Culture, Media and Society says infusion of patriotic values involves more than just telling students to be patriotic.
That it requires overall evaluation of a curriculum just like what Dokora is proposing for Zimbabwe’s education system.
“But patriotism is not something that a teacher can instill into children simply by telling them to love their country,” says Professor Fujioka.
“One cannot present patriotism to children like a birthday cake that comes out of a box.
“It cannot be taught like showing them how to solve a quadratic equation, either.
“The essence of patriotic education lies in the orientation of an overall educational plan.
“It manifests itself in scattered fashion in various subjects and educational areas. “Children are encouraged to develop an interest in Japan, its people and its rich and unique culture in a natural way, and to nurture pride in and cherish their country.”
It is common cause that for any country, teaching love for one’s country occupies an important place in education.
This is where the British got us through the current curriculum.
Where we were supposed to be taught about Mbuya Nehanda and the liberation struggle, we were taught about Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler and the First and Second World Wars.
Since the turn of the new millennium when our relations with our erstwhile colonisers turned sour, it became so easy for our so-called academics to abandon the ideals of the liberation struggle and our history in favour of a British funded and founded party and ‘ideology’.
There has been an equally sustained onslaught on our history by the Americans.
In November 2012, the US Embassy Public Affairs Section held a presentation where a collection of articles authored by former American Ambassador to Harare Charles Ray was translated to Shona.
Titled ‘Kwaunoenda Ndiko Kwakanyanya Kukosha Kudarika Kwaunobva’, the collection was aimed at rubbishing the country’s war of liberation among other issues.
The problem with our education is that it is too Westernised.
Therefore the proposed Dokora changes must among other things prioritise our history and patriotism.
For our children to salute the national flag and recite a pledge of patriotism at school is just a simple way of catching them young, just as the Americans and British do.