IN an interview with The Sunday Mail of May 3, the Deputy Minister of Education, Professor Paul Mavhima, said the Curriculum Review Framework was informed by the experiences of China, Singapore and South Korea and that it would focus on preparing the learners to become small business owners. He said this should drive the economy forward. Banding China, Singapore and South Korea together is deceptive because they are not the same, the history is not the same. First the Chinese economy is built on a very strong ideological foundation. The Chinese Communist Party does not compromise its ideological fundamentals. The party is supreme, government serves under the leadership of the Communist Party. Second, the Chinese economy grew from giant state corporations, even with the opening up in recent years, at least 60 percent of the Chinese economy is state owned. It is giant state corporations which are responsible for China’s spectacular success not small businesses as purported by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in a report in The Sunday Mail of May 3 2015. Zimbabwe’s children are the owners of this incredibly rich country, it is therefore their destiny to own everything in Zimbabwe, to be the owners of mega enterprises which control these mega resources. This is why we fought the war of liberation. Tinoda Zimbabwe neupfumi hwayo hwose does not mean being owners of small businesses. Indigenisation means ownership of the economy not scrambling for off-cuts from those who truly own the economy. China has never compromised on its ideology, that is why it has outstripped economies that were way ahead of it at the time that it started its revolution. The Chinese have academies of ideology and professors in their ideology; with them it is very serious business. Since the Curriculum Review Framework states no ideological position, it is opportunistic and insincere to stitch the example of China on to its muddled framework. It is not honest to claim China’s economic success without being truthful about its basis. Introducing practical subjects is not the solution. What drives the economy is production and this is what the ZIMFEP model offers. In a ZIMFEP programme for instance, in leather work students would learn leather tanning and actually produce the leather they need to make leather goods, they learn to design the leather products, shoes, handbags and such like, they produce the leather articles and they still learn how to market them. A graduate of such an education can own and run a giant leather tanning factory, can own and run a factory that produces leather goods, and still market these successfully. At the same time he can still own and run a cattle ranch for they also learn animal husbandry as the schools are on farms where they actually raise cattle. This is what it takes to produce entrepreneurs, owners, and this cannot be achieved by injecting practical subjects here and there into a moribund system. It can only be achieved by a whole ideological outlook, and certainly not an ideology that sees Zimbabwe as a nation of petty business owners. The time for that expired when we won the war of liberation. It is vexing to imagine how the so-called Curriculum Review arrived at outcomes that are not centred on these critical truths which are fundamental to the success of Zimbabwe’s revolution. When I was teaching at Allan Wilson High School, my history students told me: “Ma’am, we no longer want our school to be called Allan Wilson High, we want it to be called Tongogara High.” This was after we had discussed Allan Wilson’s role as one of the armed bandits who was part of the invasion force which raided and occupied our country in 1890. The schoolchildren said this to me in 1989. Per chance the adults who took part in the ‘review’ could not perceive this far? In the ‘review,’ did anyone remember that our children’s spirits are restive, pining to be called by their correct surname, they are Zimbabweans, they are children with a name, they are not bastards. Makati vanonyaradzwa naniko vana ivava. Zvamakati nyika yavo haina kumbogara yakapambwa. Asi kuti pane vane pamuromo chete, vanongobwazha? During our bondage to British colonialism, vana vakashungurudzika kusvika pakubuda munyika kundotsvaga gidi. Ko, ikozvino munovashungurudza munoda kuti vadini? Their compatriots already paid the price for their freedom. Why fetter them still? Makavakungudza here vene venyika kuti you want to end economic bondage to the white man, that you want to destroy the servant mentality in our people and they refused to tell you how? Did you ask the mothers that: Molly zvaakafira ikoko kuhondo. Can we forget the education from the struggle? Did you ask the grandmothers who cooked for the comrades whether you should adopt the education from the struggle which teaches children to be expert with their minds and hands and they said No? Did you present to the family of Zimbabwe the education from the struggle which teaches about their rich beautiful land and the heroic history of the struggle and they said No? Did they refuse that their children should read such? Our country is rich. Zimbabwe is a good country to live in. It is a beautiful country to live in. I am fighting for a beautiful country. (ZANU Education and Culture Department:1979). Did you talk about the struggle at all? Who did you ask who does not know this special epoch in our history? Or is it that the children of Zimbabwe did not want to be taken for a ride and they told you what you wanted so that they could never be your accomplices in your project, your real purpose in carrying out the so-called Curriculum Review? Or did you, like the Nziramasanga Commission Report, develop convenient amnesia about some very special contributions which would have upset your mission? Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.