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Gibson Nyikadzino, Zimpapers Politics Hub
ZIMBABWE has fought hard to cleanse post-independence remnants of the apartheid education system institutionalised by the racist colonial regime.
In independent Zimbabwe, a colonial hangover that sought to disrupt the transition to majority rule has been expunged from the education sector to create new modern structures that speak to modern challenges facing the people.
It means colonial practices that targeted Zimbabwe, like use of passes by learners to access school premises, the categorisation of schools as “Group A” or “Group B”, and the defunding of education for blacks, all vestiges of apartheidism, no longer have space in today’s environment.
British colonial and imperial evangelist Charles Grant, in 1792, said he “believed that the introduction of Western education and Christianity would transform a morally decadent society” in the territories that were targeted for occupation.
As a result, there is a historical fact on the establishment of missionary education institutions in Africa, which led the legitimisation of colonialism to make use of English language to enhance communication between Europeans and natives, and foster mutual feelings of esteem and respect, vital to the enduring interests of the British on the continent.
Therefore, everything that colonialism did to the indigenous and native occupant of a territory known today as Zimbabwe was never meant to advance the interests of locals.
This is key for apologists of the colonial empire to know, lest they start peddling the narrative that colonialism was a developmental enterprise.
It was neither developmental nor progressive. Rather, it was socially barbaric, economically exploitative and politically archaic in its use of either soft or hard power to achieve its objectives.
British colonial policies in Zimbabwe cannot be commended, for they supplanted and undermined an extensive Zimbabwean tradition of socio-political and economic organisation.
The colonial schooling system was an education for subordination, exploitation, creation of mental confusion, and the “development of underdevelopment”, to use Walter Rodney’s parlance.
Socially, the disruption of the Zimbabwean education fabric in its indigenous format and the imposition of the colonial system has consequences that we see today, which some individuals and institutions have failed to wean themselves from.
In Zimbabwe, oral education has always enjoyed an honoured place in local culture.
However, the advent of British colonialism disrupted the Zimbabwean academy and co-opted locals into an alien system that taught people not that which could benefit them, but to articulate the way the colonials wanted to see things pan out.
The worst outcome from the colonial education system in Zimbabwe was the strange idea of segregating learners in clusters or making them dependent on the European way of life.
It would be fair to say the system of colonial education did not allow for the majority population, Africans in Zimbabwe, to become fully independent in post-colonialism.
It is against this background that debates about the decolonisation of education are beginning to gain momentum, providing an opportune time to engage in transformation with a focus on access, equality and relevance.
By decolonising education, this involves all people interrogating the colonial complicity and racial hierarchies, and also foregrounding and creating epistemic resources which identify and address racism and coloniality in all its forms, rather than turning away from it.
The colonial administrators always said that “if we do not intend to admit Blacks, be it now or by degrees to encroach on social equality, let us not put false ideas into their heads nor encourage them to foster hopes of equality”.
It was anathema to envision equality among white and black learners. When people are oppressed for so long, they become unaware and unable to fight against the dominating behaviour.
The oppressor thrives on this and can dish out more manipulation to the point of normalcy.
It can now be recognised that an extensive discourse exists regarding the optimal methods to dismantle the inherited educational frameworks established to uphold the colonial social hierarchy, perpetuate neo-colonial dependency, encourage elitism, and insufficiently equip individuals for successful integration within their communities and an evolving global landscape.
The first step is to abandon those practices that the colonial masters used to socially divide and rule people in the education sector.
Today, many efforts have been put in by the Government to address the education sector through several regulations, ratification of global conventions and a Constitution that prioritises the right to education for every Zimbabwean in Section 75.
More so, Statutory Instrument (SI) 13 of 2025 on the general education regulations states that no child must be denied access to education over failure to pay school fees or levies.
A few years ago, some schools even went to extremes as they issued learners with gate-passes, to distinguish who was eligible to be in class or not.
In independent Zimbabwe, there is no place for educators to think in colonial and apartheid terms because the representation of all forms of segregation in the education sector should be erased.
When the Government is going to lengths to ensure that the education being acquired by learners today is divorced from colonial influences in all aspects, no individual or institution should reverse the sacrifices being made, for these sacrifices to decolonise the education sector are a continuous trend initiated during the struggle against colonialism.
This year’s Independence Day celebrations, running under the theme “Zim@45: Devolve and Develop Together Towards Vision 2030” should be adopted and educationally resonate with what the Government is doing from national to local levels in all of the country’s provinces.
Government has set itself apart from the external reliance syndrome for technical skills and financing by implementing a purposeful programme to leverage the nation’s human resources in the education sector to move towards ideation, innovation and industrialisation, instead of discriminating learners based on social hierarchy, or being elitist.
What has to be avoided in schools or learning institutions is to have an education system that is predominantly Eurocentric in an environment with a diversity of inhabitants like Zimbabwe.
For example, religious education in Zimbabwe has had multiple phases and alterations since 1980, as evidenced by the evolving titles of subjects: from Christian Education to Bible Knowledge, then to Religious and Moral Education, and currently to Family, Religion, and Moral Education. Education pedagogies that perpetuate foreign values at the expense of indigenous ones must be dismantled.
It is acknowledged that British colonial education created a class of Anglophone Zimbabweans, who, during colonial and post-colonial years were well-versed in the literature, philosophy and political ideas of the British.
However, times are changing. Little benefit has been derived locally by using alien ideas that are not filtered or distilled to address local challenges.
If educators and academics continue to ignore our own stories, there will be a continued upholding of colonial patterns learnt years back. Now is the time to be brave to understand the Zimbabwean story and teach it in a consciously enlightened way that makes learners get their place in the world and fight for it to be in equal standing with everyone else.
This will be the only path to equitable education and empower learners to feel complete and at ease about who they are.
Online Reporter