The ManicaPost
Bevan Musoko Post Correspondent—
An illustration is often given of an electrician who was summoned to repair an assembly line at a huge factory. The whole assembly line had stopped and the company had lost three days production.The electrician studied the whole assembly line for close to twenty minutes. He then called for a hammer and gently tapped at a soft corner on the electric switch. He directed that electricity be switched on. The whole assembly line roared back to life. The company management was elated.
On his cost, he indicated that he was charging five thousand dollars. “Five thousand dollars for less than an hour’s work? That’s outrageous,” complained the company’s maintenance manager. The electrician confidently and calmly explained that fifty dollars was for the gentle tapping with the hammer while the rest was for knowing where to tap. Such is the value of education.
“The enlightenment and exposure that comes with literacy is one of the best gifts a Government can bequeath to its citizenry” is an adage that was popularized by one of the 18th century philosophers. This adage equally holds true in this post-modern world even though the instruments and media of learning have shifted to the computer and other electronic gadgets from the manual manuscripts. It is in this context that the Zimbabwean Government invested
heavily in the education sector since Independence.
A brief background is that the ZANU PF Government prioritized the education of the previously marginalized black citizens by implementing non-discriminatory policies upon assumption of power in 1980. Pieces of legislation like the Education Act and the Disabled Persons Act consolidated the visionary policy of educating the masses for social transformation and development. The Disabled Persons Act of 1996 provided that “all students, regardless of race, religion, gender, creed, and disability, have access to basic or primary education.”
It was through such policies and the progressive allocation of highest Government budgetary support to the education sector in successive national budgets that Zimbabwe was able to achieve a 93% literacy rate for the age groups 15 to 24 years by the year 2000.
This earned the country number one literacy status on the African continent. By 2016, the country had nine operational State universities and several other private universities. Plans are at an advanced stage to have two more State universities, Manicaland and Gwanda State Universities. Several Teacher Training Colleges and Vocational Training Institutions complement the Government’s Manpower Development Policy.
These achievements have not come without challenges. The common challenge has been funding. Just after Independence the Government made it a priority that basic education would be accessed for free. During the 1980s even university education was free. However, this has changed for the tertiary education sector. This sector is expensive to run as it requires deep expertise, research and materials.
Thus the Government adopted a cost-recovery model for the tertiary sector. This was due to other developments which might appear unrelated to the education sector, though they had a huge bearing on the capacity of the State to continue financing “free” education. The imposition of economic sanctions by the Western governments around the year 2000 severely disabled the State to continue funding the education sector in the same manner it had done before.
Prior to this handicap, Government had the foresight to initiate the process of localizing the examination system. The Zimbabwean examinations were traditionally run by Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. This meant that the Government had to pay for this service which was, however, not transferring any skills to the locals.
As early as 1990, the first batch of Ordinary Level examinations was marked in Zimbabwe on a trial basis. By 1994, the Government had passed the Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) Act. Between 2002 and 2003, the first Advanced Level examinations were marked in Zimbabwe, marking the culmination of the process to localize the examinations system. The local examinations system was evaluated by the UK’s National Academic Recognition and Information Centre (NARIC).
The process to localize the examination system ran concurrently with efforts to reform our education curricula, though the curricula reform process was left behind by the examinations localization process. Funding challenges were encountered along the way.
Today ZIMSEC boasts of using an electronic marking system for Integrated Science, Mathematics, English, Commerce, Accounts, Physics, Biology and Chemistry at Ordinary level. Computers for the exercise are housed at Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) and Orange Grove Motel in Chinhoyi. In the absence of funding challenges, the migration towards electronic examinations marking would have been completed.
It is against this background that the recent announcement by Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Dr Lazarus Dokora, that Government had secured a $20.6 m grant from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) made interesting reading.
The Minister indicated that the grant would specifically support learners with special needs, non-formal access to education, teacher professional development, production and distribution of learning materials for the most disadvantaged schools and introduction of assessment systems from early childhood development level to secondary school level.
Dr Dokora added that “the GPE grant funding will also be used to strengthen leadership and institutional capacity, management and research competences for personnel to ensure better planning, data use and evidence-based decision-making at both national and sub-national levels”.
GPE Chief Executive Officer Alice Albright applauded developments registered in the country’s education sector. Ms Albright said: “Zimbabwe has made encouraging progress in its education outcomes in recent years. With this grant, the Global Partnership for Education is pleased to continue to help Zimbabwe build on its growing commitment to give all its children the quality schooling they deserve.”
Dr Dokora said the previous GPE funding totaling $23m enabled Zimbabwe to boost learning outcomes in basic education by training more than 23 000 teachers in the use of early reading materials and more than 28 000 teachers in the use of the Performance Lag Address Programme. He said the funding also enabled the country to capture Teacher qualification data electronically through a programme called the Teacher Development Information Systems.
It is on record that Government efforts to improve the education system have also been supplemented by the Education Transition Fund (ETF). This is a Government initiative together with other cooperating partners and the United Nations International Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) that seeks to improve the quality of education by distributing education materials.
Accumulation and distribution of textbooks has been the focus of ETF in recent years. As a background, by 2008 education authorities had noted that 20 percent of students did not have textbooks for core subjects and the student to textbook ratio was 10:1. Following the intervention, thousands of textbooks have been provided in the past few years along with additional learning materials. UNICEF currently reports that the student to textbook ratio is now 1:1.
Another Government initiative in partnership with cooperating international organisations has been the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM). BEAM was set up to pay school fees for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) to prevent them from dropping out of primary school due to the cost-recovery model that had been adopted by Government. The programme is, however, only serving less than the target population due to various funding challenges.
As pointed out by Minister Dokora Government needs to source more funding to improve the schools infrastructure, especially in resettlement areas.
UNICEF is the GPE’s grant administering agent in Zimbabwe while the UK Department of International Development is the coordinating agency. All this has been achieved due to cooperation between the Government and various other concerned partners. Had these partners chosen to be confrontational to the Government of Zimbabwe on the basis of some perceived shortcomings, this could not have been achieved. The lesson, therefore, is that instead of confrontation, even those with alternative views to those of Government can still engage the Government for positive outcomes.
The country’s internal and external detractors, however, complain that the education system is churning out thousands of graduates and other school leavers in the absence of a corresponding mechanism to absorb them into the job market.
Such criticism is not surprising. As all it serves to achieve is to impress upon Education authorities the urgent need for our education curricula review. Gone are the days when university graduates would expect to be employed.
While the employment expectation is reasonable, it has to be understood and interrogated in the context of the international economy and developments in other counties.
Studies in the Asian tigers have shown that small but productive small industries that are individually driven with small amounts of capital have become the engine for growth.
Gone are the days of massive industrial conglomerates that employed thousands of people in sweat shops. Today’s world calls for graduates that are innovative and are willing to swap designer suits for work suits. This then calls upon the Government to capacitate our small industries through seed capital financing and an enabling environment.
The Government has already laid the base for an economic boom once the political issues with the Western Governments are resolved. ZESA has electrified most rural service centres. Political disputes with powerful nations will not be there for-ever.
Who expected that the US would re-open its embassy in Cuba? In the meantime, the education and knowledge imparted to our youths is theirs for-ever.
It will be at that crucial time that many among our number will begin to appreciate the visionary policies of the incumbent Government. It is better to be unemployed than to be unemployable.
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