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Stephen Mpofu
Zimbabwe is by no means a Lilliput when it comes to matters of literacy.
On the contrary, our country is a Gulliver as it were, rated top most in literacy on the African continent with other countries in a scramble to touch Gulliver’s head.
However, a reversed bromide appears to be the case when you consider higher, academic research vis-à-vis the country’s very, very high educational record in Africa and elsewhere in the underdeveloped world.
Which would make a stranger from outer space wonder if Zimbabwe’s high literacy record merely concerns learning to read and write without relating these values to practical work.
Such an evaluation of the country’s literacy rating, in the absence of a notable wealth of books or articles published by academics in various disciplines reduces any research by our academics to what Shakespeare terms in one of his play — Much Ado About Nothing.
This rather appalling state of affairs apparently led Professor Jonathan Moyo, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, to condemn the education sector, saying the country had useless academics who conducted research that was not published.
There was a rot, Prof Moyo charged with the result that none of Zimbabwe’s universities was ranked among Africa’s 50 top varsities.
This week in Bulawayo, Great Zimbabwe University lecturer Francis Dakwa bemoaned the failure by academics in this country to publish their research work, saying they were shy to do so and died with their knowledge as a result, leaving behind a paucity in books from local research for the benefit of academia at large as well as the countries cultural heritage.
A senior lecturer in the faculty of Education, Dakwa said Zimbabwean students had continually depended on books written by foreigners in the West in the absence of research works published by local scholars.
The big question that must be answered is why, in light of higher academic attainment being the ultimate goal for thousands and thousands of Zimbabweans, there is no corresponding deluge in published works to benefit the nation.
Or are we dealing here with academics who replicate research by foreigners so that our own academics fear accusation for plagiarism?
If, on the other hand, research topics by Zimbabwean scholars are virgin topics, not geriatric ones, then there is no reason why any Zimbabwean scholars should shy away in immortalising their own effort in cold print to be applauded by those who hunger after new breakthroughs in knowledge.
While we are at this discourse, those in academia and possessed by a propensity for pontificating to others about publishing research works should themselves show for their holier-than-thous to earn unmitigated public respect.
The first Academics and Teachers’ Conference addressed by Dakwa and other leaders in education at the National University of Science and Technology this week should also give impetus to so-called heroes of the armed struggle to publish books about their exploits so that they are not buried with the knowledge of the roles they played in liberating the country from colonial rule.
With the revolution now in its national developmental stretch, contributions by way of books and articles written by former fighters will certainly embolden Zimbabweans per se in pursuing the economic, political and social ramifications of the revolution for it to withstand any hijacking by imperialist lackeys whose patriotism is susceptible to seduction by foreigners with dirty money.
The Nust conference should also be viewed as a wake-up call to creative writers in this country whose fire looked set for conflagration in the early years of independence but now appears to be smouldering, also creating a gap in the body of literature for foreign books to fill.
Literary works targeting corruption in high offices as well as factionalism to expose the dangers of these two and other anti-social behaviours will certainly have the power to conscientise Zimbabweans on the need to walk on the side of the law so that the rot does not permeate present and future structures of society with detrimental consequences for cohesion at lower levels as well as national unity to withstand intrusive, divisive foreign elements so that the country remains strong and proud in the face of any diversity at all, to be emulated by other nations.
The Zimbabwe Writers’ Union in Harare — of which this pen was a founding Publicity Secretary with Chenjerai Hove, now late, and Musa Zimunya as other top executives in the early years of independence — served as a torch bearer for creative writers in this country. But have ZIWU’s new leaders led the writers union to sleep, or are the country’s publishing houses now insular to works submitted by budding writers, or by more seasoned ones, for publication?
The academics and teachers conference in Bulawayo this week ought also to be viewed as having made a call to creative writers to get into action in order to boost Zimbabwe’s body of literature for the benefit of posterity.
As a matter of fact, many exciting new books by local writers will give greater revival to Zimbabwe’s International Book Fair as a must-not-miss event each calendar year, and the country’s image will be spruced up by international attendances in the processes.
Online Reporter