Online Reporter
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
SINCE the colonisation of our motherland by racist foreigners, a crisis has been developing helter‑skelter linguistically, threatening to vanquish patriotism and Ubuntu, which stand as the pillars of our liberated nation.
Racists who colonised our country caught us young by making us believe that their language was next to godliness, and, as a result, we are experiencing a shortage of primary school books written in indigenous languages. These are the languages that should unite our people as one nation, in the same way that different leaves decorate a tree as one.
Colonialists described the countryside where the majority of black people lived as “the sticks”, a term that suggested that whatever language Africans spoke in the bush — and not their own languages in urban centres — was insignificant and fit only to be tolerated by their colonial masters. Our people, too, began to thumb their noses at their own languages in an effort to speak and appear civilised like their colonisers.
It is therefore not surprising that the 15 indigenous languages that should flourish in school books, to be taught at primary and secondary levels and in tertiary institutions to promote understanding, unity and pride in who we are as Zimbabweans, are either unavailable or in critically short supply.
The languages in point above include Chichewa, ChiBarwe, TjiKalanga, Tshwa, ChiNambya, ChiNdau, IsiNdebele, Xitsonga, IsiXhosa, Sign Language, SeSotho, ChiTonga, SeTswana, TshiVenda and ChiShona.
The absence of these languages in bookshops and school libraries is not accidental. It reflects years of neglect and a mindset that continues to elevate foreign languages above our own. When children grow up without ever seeing their language in print, they grow up believing that their thoughts and their stories are lesser. This quiet damage is difficult to repair later in life.
Teachers are left with limited tools to pass on knowledge using the languages learners understand best. Parents struggle to support learning at home when textbooks fail to reflect the language spoken around the hearth. As a result, education becomes distant instead of familiar, and learning feels borrowed rather than owned.
Language is more than a medium of instruction. It carries history, values, humour and memory. When indigenous languages are absent from books, these elements are weakened. Patriotism then becomes a slogan rather than a lived experience grounded in daily speech and shared meaning.
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education introduced the Heritage‑based Curriculum Framework 2024-2030 to integrate Zimbabwe’s cultural and historical heritage into learning, while shifting education from rote memorisation to skills development.
The curriculum focuses on leadership, problem‑solving, innovation, business and financial literacy, entrepreneurship, patriotism and Ubuntu.
The unavailability of indigenous language textbooks, in contrast with the abundance of English‑language books, suggests that the minds of our children are yet to be decolonised from their preference for the language of our former colonisers. Writers and publishers, in turn, see little reason to invest time and energy in work they believe very few people will buy.
But compare this with the popularity — both locally and abroad — of children’s books and other literature written and produced in English by Zimbabweans, and the need becomes evident for Government to adopt compulsory measures to ensure the production and distribution of books in our indigenous languages in schools.
Without such intervention, Zimbabwean children will be caught young into reading about their country and its developmental needs and successes only through a lens shaped by others.
Yet real progress can only emerge through co-operation, which itself comes from unity, peace and stability. When that foundation is strong, children at all educational levels — and their parents — will confidently proclaim that we, our children, and their children’s children will love and continue to develop the only place that God gave us as our home.
