The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Education Correspondent
While the threat of cholera might have significantly subsided or is completely under control in the country, behavioural cholera continues to haunt the nation, particularly in schools, colleges and universities. Thank God its examination time. The demon of moral decay is fast asleep.
There was an outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe recently. The nation was on high alert led by the Ministry of Health and all its arms to mitigate the outbreak. It is the level of vigilance that was hugely impressive. The radios and televisions spoke cholera.
The journalists of newspapers and magazines wrote cholera and even musicians, not to be left out hip-hopped and Zim-dansoed cholera. What a unity of purpose on this one threat that had everybody on their toes. The traditional cordial open handshake quickly turned into a fist of wrath as everyone preferred the tight-fist big-up hello-how-are-you.
We all washed every fruit we bought on the street corner on running water. We used soap to wash hands after visiting the Ladies or Gents’ convenience rooms. People were all alert and watchful. Cholera kills and that is no joke.
If the people of Zimbabwe were equally awake to the behavioural cholera in the schools, colleges and universities today, these institutions would be better places almost at once. As it is, people do not perceive the scourge of moral decadence in these education centres to be anything dangerous. Understandable to an extent, because the outbreak is not of a health nature!
Zimbabweans are pretending there is no problem in schools, colleges and universities even when every day we hear of and read about shocking instances and feats of student prostitution, drug abuse and all forms of sexual exploitation, harassment and abuse.
School heads are busy, not fighting the fire, for in some cases the flames and infernos have gone out of hand, but busy making sure no one knows about the behavioural pandemic spreading like veld-fire in their educational institutions. The daring ones, or is it the un-superstitious, came out in the open declaring their homosexual tendencies as if it was a modern sexual fashion to celebrate. In schools? God forbid!
Every parent says it is someone’s son or daughter and not his or hers. The teachers are saying, What can we do? The parents and Government have agreed to spare the rod. They believe children have rights that no one cannot and must not interfere with.
Everyone does not want to talk about how morally weak and degenerate these same children are and what it means for their own future and that of the country. No one wants to talk about how impossible it is for girls of no substance to grow into wives and mothers of substance come tomorrow. No one wants to talk about how gone are the old traditional values, and how materialism and easy, short-lived comforts that destroy character have become part of schools, colleges and universities. No one wants to talk about how this type of cholera, this behavioural cholera has, like the real cholera, created a social malady we are ignoring, turning a deaf ear to and hoping it will somehow vanish into thin air.
Is it not an open secret that our children, while they may be attaining distinctions and scooping unprecedented levels of points in their examinations, they are morally decadent? What future is there for a country . . . any country, in such a behavioural predicament? What future is there in the context of home and family? If the puppies eat eggs now, what will they do when they grow up into dogs?
Our sons and daughters in schools, particularly colleges and universities have become lost souls, horrible products of a corrupt, permissive and promiscuous society that has gone to the dogs. Why do we stand aside and look? In the long run what is going to be of dire consequence, the real cholera outbreak that bedevilled Zimbabwe a month or so ago or the proverbial cholera slowly devastating educational institutions?
Where is life heading to, seemingly without anyone on radio and television, and all over, suggesting ways of survival in the midst of such a vortex of moral decay? The electronic media instead of being a school for moral decadence and a model of moral sanity has defiantly and sadly . . . very sadly, continued to be a conduit for celebrations of moral decay. Do Zimbabweans not see the behaviour scourge savagely creating a gruesome fate for our children in schools?
As Professor Charles Pfukwa says in his review of Morris Mtisi’s novel, Studying for the Grave (2016) which is an honest and brutal expose of student prostitution, “The issue of moral decadence in education institutions needs to be addressed head-on from grassroots level to national level. Otherwise our children are indeed ‘Studying for the Grave’,” as the title befittingly suggests.
While real cholera may have been put under control in educational institutions and indeed other places in the country, the cholera of behaviour continues to take a toll. The behavioural pandemic in Zimbabwe, particularly in schools, colleges and universities, is as deadly as cholera and Ebola put together.
It is the import of this article to put Zimbabwe on high alert around issues to do with behaviour. This is a crisis which clearly and sadly has gone to the dogs in the schools, colleges and universities around the country. Is it not about time people of influence, people who have the power and voice, championed the cause for ending or mitigating behavioural cholera?
