The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi —
THE best news coming out of the new curriculum, among several other critically important dimensions, is the introduction of Literature in Shona in the schools.
And this development deserves an honourable thumbs-up for the proponents of the new curriculum, top on the list Minister Dokora himself.
For the record, Shona Literature at both ‘O’ and ‘A’ level has ever been an appendage on the Shona Paper. English Language and Literature in English since the latter became an examinable learning area (subject) have been two autonomous, independent learning areas.
The colonial examination Shona Paper ever since has been a mockery of the people of Zimbabwe in various ways. First it tested grammar: the subject, verb and object, the adjective, nouns and noun classes-mu/va, mu/mi, ri/ma, chi/zvi and the rest of the familiar nonsense everyone remembers but never used in life.
The idea was to give students something to learn and give the teacher something to teach; useless and unusable knowledge in life, clearly Shakespeare’s ‘tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.’
This grammatical crap was like superfluous flesh, not necessary in any sense and sheer intellectual burden.
This grammar did not make anyone write or speak Shona better. We all could from womb to tomb. Why did we teach this stuff? Why did we learn it? May be I must not speak so strongly yet, seemingly celebrating before the goal. I am not sure this is now or is soon going to be rubbish for the garbage can.
I really hope so.
As a languages teacher myself for many years, I have no hesitation to say that is why students lost interest in Shona and the regrettable outcome was poor results in the subject.
Our own children, Zimbabweans who were born speaking Shona, dismally flopped, failed Shona. They still do. The scenario has worsened to epidemic levels.
The colonial education sector knew this would happen. And it happened. Today it has become viral; a syndrome, endemic and shameful but real and almost incurable.
Even the few students who continued to love Shona did not take trophies and prizes home. Those who passed Shona did not enjoy any real sense of achievement; not the sense of achievement enjoyed when one passed English Language which was the pole subject. You could pass everything else, but without English at all you were as good or bad as not having gone to school.
So our children knew Shona was literally a waste of time and ended up believing it.
Those who excelled in it ended up mere laughing stock. Our children ended up illiterate in their own mother-tongue. If the truth be told it was not even anybody’s mother-tongue but a salad of mainly Karanga and Zezuru offensively called standard Shona. Ndau, Venda, Manyika, Jindwi, Tonga and other indigenous languages were not standard. What an insult!
But this was deliberate. The colonial education sector knew what would happen eventually with this type of impotent syllabus.
Their aim was to kill a people’s languages and kill their beliefs, traditions and cultural values.
Look at our children today. If yours are not little white boys and girls in black skins you are still lucky. The rest now hate Shona and not only pretend not to know any at all. They really do not, and in most instances put effort to hate everything Shona. Lest we underestimate the far-reaching calculated damage of colonialism! While we may have a lot to appreciate about the advent of formal education among us, the collateral damage of colonial education was too severe to be easily forgotten or overlooked.
Certainly many of us benefited a lot from Composition writing, if a teacher was able to teach what constituted skilful narrative writing: the idiom, idiophone, proverbs, descriptive detail etc, though it was far less in depth than the literary thrust and scope around the area of Composition writing in English.
In the latter, even the composition types were a whole range: Discursive (aka Factual or Expository), Descriptive and Argument.
The letter writing stretched to business letter writing and other skills included report writing, newspaper article writing etc. We all remember that.
The Shona paper had very little to offer and develop. It was very shallow compared to the English syllabus and examination, except for the brain-damaging grammar. I personally will never forget the notorious noun classes.
The Shona syllabus did not offer ground to develop powers of Observation, Reflection, Imagination and Judgment in a piece of literary work-Critical thinking. Not as deliberately and purposefully as Literature in English did. The scope of the Shona paper was piece-meal and miserably shallow.
The syllabus did not aim at upholding our cultural values. Even the little Literature that was mere addendums of the Shona paper did not seriously and directly address character-building, cultural values, our normative beliefs and traditions which formed a whole African philosophy and way of life and thinking that made Africans people.
The colonial school made sure the dignity and honour of being African was not only mocked, but forgotten. Hence the doses of useless class-nouns and a miserably shallow look at Shona literature.
Those who were born at the time, or were at least watchful enough, will remember Bernard Chidzero’s NZVENGAMUTSVAIRO was banned…I think FESO as well it was. The authors had openly resisted the colonial agenda where the aim was deliberate to make African fears, anxieties, challenges, problems and the whole essence of relevance absent from a school programme of teaching and learning.
When a curriculum seeks to address these anomalies, seeks to deepen the scope and horizon of teaching and learning, embracing all that makes education a process of relevant mental and intellectual liberation; when a curriculum seeks to address the critical issues of the morality of children whose sense of Ubuntu / Hunhu and responsibility have gone to the dogs, and doing so not through sermonizing and evangelizing but simple literature written to be enjoyed and studied with a deliberate aim to make it wholesome and relevant, we can only say AMEN, can we not?
When men and women of academic valour, substance and thought sit down to extend the war of liberation into a system of education to bring about fundamental freedoms and change, we can only say HALELUYAA, can we not?
I want to publicly congratulate the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education under the revolutionary and evolutionary captainship of Dr Lazarus Dokora for a job well done. We know very well the new educational reforms did not begin in his head or office.
Many had long spoken and written about these reforms befitting of a new and independent political outfit-Dr Nziramasanga for one was given the authority and space to research and recommend a relevant curriculum for a new-born country, which he diligently did in 644 pages.
Thank you to him too. But we want to thank Minister LD for putting wings on the aero-plane and make it fly. If the Chinese only gave us guns and no one was willing to take them up and use them to speak the language of freedom, we could still be in Rhodesia. We sincerely thank the children of Zimbabwe who sacrificed all to make the idea and project of freedom make sense.
The education airplane is now flying, at least still warming up the engines and getting ready to leave the airport. What we need now are measures to ensure that our great machine does not fall.
Lest we forget! When the Wright brothers invented the aero-plane, realistic scientists invented parachutes to safeguard passengers in the event of an aerial accident.
Likewise the new curriculum needs to be safe guarded. Many things can go wrong on the journey through unknown skies.
We need to be watchful, thoughtful and realistic.
Even in this good news of a new learning area-Literature in Shona and other indigenous languages! But what are the challenges likely to be faced? Do not miss next week’s edition of The Education Page.
