adminItai Frank Kurebwa and Thomas Gatsi
This new column is motivated by the bold decision made by President Robert Mugabe, to set up a Department of Liaison on Psychomotor Activities in Education and Training stationed in his Office.
Let us hasten to state that the views expressed in this column are derived from the writers’ perception and should not be confused with the official Government position on the various issues that will be raised.
Why a revolution and not other forms of the change processes?
Zimbabwe, like other countries of Southern Africa, attained its independence through a revolutionary war and there was no room and time to transform other important areas such as the economy, the land and, most importantly, education.
Revolutions for land and the economy are already in progress and the psychomotor domain is now being unveiled so as to spearhead the revolution in education.
What is wrong with our education in Zimbabwe when we have arguably the highest literacy rate in Africa?
It is very simple to find out what is wrong. I have personally met a number of graduates from our universities and tertiary institutions, some of them with good Masters degrees but they are not employed.
The simple question I always ask is, “What can you do?”
Perhaps readers should at this juncture, whether employed or not, ask themselves what it is that their education has enabled them to do for themselves in order to create a livelihood apart from being able to work for and under someone.
For your information, the question posed above was met with various negative responses and especially, “I can do anything”.
There you are Zimbabwe, the bulk of your learned graduates have no specific skills gathered from their studies and thus can never be effective members of the society.
Where did we get it all wrong on our education?
About 20 years ago in some of my studies, I came across a book written by Professor Atkinson entitled, “A History of Education in Zimbabwe, 1890-1980”. Information I gathered from this book and material from other history books made me aware of how much the settlers had used education as a tool to totally colonise the locals.
This occurred in the following ways:
The early settlers believed that natives or “kaffirs” were best suited to be hewers of wood and fetchers of water, thus they developed a Pidgin English language, “silapalapa”, as a means of communication with the natives.
Then came the Pioneer Column in 1890 with groups of missionaries which included the Lutherans, Dutch Reformed Church, Catholics and the Anglicans, just to name a few, whose mission was, presumably to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order for this to happen, natives had to be taught English and Basic Arithmetic so that they would able to read and understand the Bible.
The missionaries established a number of schools around the country that started as pole and dagga up to Standard 3 prior to 1920 going on to Standard 6 in the 1920s and 1930s for some areas. The bottlenecking system was then introduced because of the shortage of qualified teachers and the limited number of schools with Standard 6. As many as six schools ending at Standard 3 would have only their best students qualifying for the Standard 6 school.
The colonial governments welcomed these developments by forming the Department of Native Education that rationalised the curriculum and set the Standard 6 examination.
Standard 6 graduates became the cream of the native education as they could be trained as teachers, clerks, nurses and even black watchers (mabhurakwacha) or “police assistants”.
The next qualification became the Junior Certificate which was attained after Form 2. This certificate’s examination was so thorough that a myth went around – if you passed it there was no way you could fail the O-Level examination. For you to become a primary school teacher past Standard 1 you now needed a junior certificate. Again there had to be bottlenecking as schools offering O-Level and later A-Level were very limited.
At this point I might as well make you aware of the fact that native education made the natives ready to serve their masters, the settlers, with no intent of providing skills for self sustenance. We are faced with a dilemma of an education that still focuses on theoretical content without the practical exposure and as a result our so-called educated populace is mostly dysfunctional.
We are holding loads of school leavers, college and university graduates who can only function when offered a job and can not create work for themselves and others and the buck stops with the type of education we are offering.
There is certainly something missing in our education if its graduates are not capable of creating a livelihood unless employed by someone. One then has to ask what this missing link is.
The Zanu-PF Education Department of the 70’s, whilst still in Mozambique, realised that there were shortcomings in our education and thus came with the concept of Education with Production which would have turned our schools into mini factories but this failed to take root.
Education with Production failed because at the time focus was more on expansion as the masses were demanding more schools at all levels. Instead Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production was formed to set up model schools and colleges.
Zimbabwe, has until now, been a centre of cognitive education with very little or no practical components. Even those schools and colleges that have tried to follow practical subjects such as home economics, building and woodwork, have been found emphasising the theory as students have to write the Hexco exams whose theory has to be passed.
The key point here is that our education at all levels lacks the “doing component” and is described by the Kenyans as a limping goat and this is where the psychomotor domain comes in.
Online Reporter