Online Reporter
Elliot Ziwira
At the Bookstore
In Zimbabwe, the Constitution has largely existed as a document for lawyers, courts and political rhetoric.
Often cited in moments of crisis and invoked in times of dispute, the Constitution remains principally absent from the everyday civic formation of citizens, particularly young people.
That absence has carried a cost in which the masses often know their grievances better than their constitutional grammar. That is why the essence of what constitutes knowledge should be constantly reviewed through the curriculum taught in primary and secondary schools.
Officially launching “Re-defining Zimbabwe’s Education System: ED Mnangagwa’s Vision and Transformational Leadership”, a book which highlights the centrality of education in national development, in February 2024, President Mnangagwa underlined that culture, heritage and education are crucial in fostering identity and heightening industrialisation and modernisation.
This, he said, is the bedrock for economic expansion, peace, equality and poverty eradication.
“Education and knowledge have always been the cornerstone of progress, a beacon of hope and a sustainable pathway to a brighter-prosperous future, including in our beloved motherland, Zimbabwe,” said the President.
President Mnangagwa’s remarks are significant in situating the importance of curricula in moulding individuals capable of interpreting consumed data and using it to effectively engage with issues impacting their communities, including what constitutes legality and responsible citizenry.
In Zimbabwe, it is the Government, through its policymakers, which determines the design of the curriculum to be used in schools and institutions of higher learning.
The designing of the curriculum has political connotations, since it tends to follow political traits. As such, the Rhodesian structure of education tended to be biased against the black majority. Such bias puts the curriculum in constant motion as the need to perpetually monitor it arises.
In schools and institutions of higher learning, the curriculum is determined, not only by social forces or the defining traits of what constitutes knowledge or lack thereof, but by human growth and development.
The philosophy behind Education 5.0 is that no education system functions effectively if it is divorced from the reality of the community it is meant to transform, hence the drive for a heritage-based inclination. Societal concerns about knowledge are merged with commercial, economic, social and industrial concerns, which determine the competence of the individual required to captain education, commerce and industry, as technology is in constant motion, and mores and values are always changing.
The Rhodesian colonial project derived its tilt in the imbroglio that came with presumed knowledge meant to feed the capitalist machinery of oppression and plunder, where information about the constitution was a preserve for the learned or racially privileged.
It is against this backdrop that Believe Guta’s book “Constitutional Studies for Schools in Zimbabwe” (2025) arrives as both an educational intervention and a quiet political statement. The book, which is yet to be approved for schools by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, is neither radical in posture, nor polemical in tone.
Its significance lies elsewhere. It is in the insistence that constitutional literacy must begin early, systematically, and within the classroom. That insistence is both pedagogical and constitutional.
Section 7(b) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (2013) obliges the State to promote public awareness of the Constitution, “in particular by ensuring that it is taught in schools.”
More than a decade after the adoption of the people-driven Constitution, this obligation has remained unevenly fulfilled, often acknowledged in policy documents but thinly implemented in curricula and teaching materials.
Guta’s book emerges as a response to that gap. In doing so, it insists that the supreme law should be systematically taught to those expected to live under it.
From the outset, “Constitutional Studies for Schools in Zimbabwe”, which is divided into 10 chapters, frames the Constitution not as an abstract legal artefact, but a living national covenant.
Learners are introduced to the idea that every country has a constitution, which is a foundational rulebook defining issues of governance as well as electoral and human rights. This framing demystifies constitutional law and returns it to its rightful place as a shared instrument.
In a curriculum landscape often crowded with examination-driven content and inherited colonial syllabuses, this approach is silently corrective. It suggests that education is not about producing exam-ready learners, but about cultivating constitutionally conscious citizens.
One of the book’s notable strengths is its effort to historicise Zimbabwe’s constitutional journey. Rather than presenting the 2013 Constitution as an isolated event, Guta traces the evolution from the Lancaster House Constitution; a negotiated, externally constrained document, to the current Constitution adopted through a national referendum.
This historical grounding is crucial, for it allows learners to understand that constitutions are not static or sacred texts dropped from the sky, but documents shaped by struggle, compromise, aspiration and national experience.
Zimbabwe’s liberation history, often taught separately from its legal architecture, would benefit from the linkage that helps in restoring continuity between independence and constitutional order.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) remains one of the most progressive legal instruments Zimbabwe has produced. Its emphasis on human dignity, expanded rights, devolution and accountability reflects a collective desire to reorder the post-independence state.
Therefore, teaching this Constitution in schools is a form of democratic inheritance.
Central to Guta’s work is the careful unpacking of the Bill of Rights. Learners are introduced to key rights, such as education, health, equality, and dignity, not as abstract entitlements, but as lived realities that shape daily experience. The examples are drawn from familiar spaces like the school, home, clinic, and community.
This pedagogical choice is important in that it gives context to learning. When grounded in everyday life, they become intelligible and defensible. The book’s recurring metaphor of the Constitution as both “a shield and a guide” reinforces the balance between protection without disorder, and freedom within responsibility.
Yet perhaps the most commendable aspect of the book is its refusal to teach rights in isolation from duties. In an era where civic discourse often collapses into grievance without obligation, Guta consistently reminds learners that rights and responsibilities are inseparable.
Democracy, the book insists, functions only when citizens respect the law, participate constructively, and uphold social cohesion.
This emphasis aligns with constitutional values often neglected in popular discourse: discipline, tolerance, unity and respect for institutions. It also resonates with the broader national concern that constitutional awareness must strengthen, not weaken, social order.
Pedagogically, “Constitutional Studies for Schools in Zimbabwe” is designed with classroom realities in mind.
Summaries, reflection questions, visuals, case studies and interactive activities encourage participation rather than passive absorption. For teachers, many of whom may not have formal legal training, the book provides a workable structure for delivering constitutional content without intimidation.
However, the book’s greatest contribution may lie beyond its pages. It implicitly challenges Zimbabwe’s curriculum architecture.
For years, civic education has been fragmented – diluted across subjects, treated as optional, or overshadowed by examinable content deemed more “practical.” Guta’s work argues, by example, that constitutional education deserves dedicated, coherent space within the curriculum.
He suggests that, as the supreme law, the Constitution should be compulsorily taught across all secondary schools. Constitutional literacy is crucial in nation-building, hence young citizens should not encounter their Constitution late.
Nonetheless, this book does not claim to resolve these structural contradictions, nor does it interrogate, in depth, the gap between constitutional promise and practice – a silence that may be strategic, given its target audience.
But as an introductory text, its restraint is understandable. Its purpose is not to radicalise, but to familiarise; not to provoke, but to ground.
Importantly, the book avoids partisan interpretation. In an environment where constitutional language is often weaponised, this neutrality is both cautious and necessary. The Constitution is presented as a shared national achievement – belonging neither to party nor faction, but to the citizenry.
This approach reflects an understanding that constitutional education, especially at school level, must unify before it can interrogate. Critical engagement can come later and foundational literacy must come first.
Dr Believe Guta’s background as an entrepreneur and civic education advocate is evident in the book’s practical orientation. Like his earlier work, “Legal Battles of an Entrepreneur”, this publication seeks to demystify law and return it to the people.
In doing so, it aligns with a broader tradition of citizen-centred legal literacy: one that recognises that rights are only meaningful when understood.
“Constitutional Studies for Schools in Zimbabwe” is less about legal mastery than about community formation. It asks learners to see themselves not merely as citizens, but constitutional actors, that is, bearers of rights, holders of responsibilities, and participants in national life.
Guta has produced a resource that gives practical effect to constitutional mandate by bringing the Constitution into the classroom in a structured, accessible and historically grounded manner. The future of constitutionalism does not lie only in courts or conferences, but in classrooms, where the next generation learns what it means to belong to a constitutional republic where shared responsibility, purpose and unity are key.
In that sense, “Constitutional Studies for Schools in Zimbabwe” is more than a teaching aid, but a quiet, measured, and timely argument for taking the Constitution seriously, starting with those who will inherit it.
For an immersive reading experience, visit the Typocrafters (DigiHub) retail shop at Herald House, corner George Silundika Avenue and Sam Nujoma Street in Harare
