Regime and Education in Zimbabwe: Unpacking Post-Independence Curriculum Crisis

This collection focuses on the post-independence educational development in Zimbabwe. It shows how the ZANU PF regime has presided over the demise of education, and covers a wide range of topics such as violence against teachers, poor salaries, student activism, minority languages, and curriculum innovations. This volume argues that the regime has used education as a tool for repression. Curriculum innovations introduced and implemented in Zimbabwe have little to do with improving the performance of the learners, and more to do with stopping teachers from pushing the regime change agenda. Consequently, this has resulted in a nation in crisis, marked with high turnover, poor economy, and mass exodus of teachers and learners. The contributors to this volume make various suggestions which could recenter education towards addressing the experiences of the learners, as opposed to being used as a tool to push repression and thwart democracy.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Regime and Education in Zimbabwe by Bekithemba Dube and Albert Mufanechiya Chapter 1: Religious Education as an Ideological Tool in Zimbabwe: Unpacking the Strategy of the Regime by Bekithemba Dube Chapter 2: The Regime, Education and Training, and Human Capital: Return on Investment in Zimbabwe by Albert Mufanechiya and Bekithemba Dube Chapter 3: Regime Enablers Among Student Activists: ZICOSU, a Case of Incentivised Student Activism at Zimbabwe’s Tertiary Institutions at the Turn of the Millennium by Baldwin Hove and Bekithemba Dube Chapter 4: The Regime, Rural Communities, Use of Schools and Impact on Education in Zimbabwe by Bekithemba Dube and Albert Mufanechiya Chapter 5: The Regime and Minority Languages in Zimbabwe: Prospects and Challenges by Cordial Bhebe and Bekithemba Dube Chapter 6: Regime and Curriculum Innovation in Zimbabwe. A Dehumanised and Terrified Teacher in the Context of Performativity by Bekithemba Dube and Sikhathele Dube Chapter 7: Regime and School Violence in Zimbabwe: Problematising the Overlooked Correlation Between Political Violence and Instability in Schools by Bekithemba Dube and Gift Masengwe Chapter 8: The Regime and Lecturers in Higher and Tertiary Education State Institutions in Zimbabwe by Albert Mufanechiya and Bekithemba Dube Chapter 9: The Regime and the Implementation of IsiNdebele in the Competency-based Curriculum in Zimbabwe by Cordial Bhebe and Bekithemba Dube Chapter 10: The Rural Teacher and the Regime in Zimbabwe by Bekithemba Dube and Albert Mufanechiya

About the Author :
Bekithemba Dube is professor and director of the Center for Diversity in Higher Education at Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein, South Africa . Albert Mufanechiya is postdoctoral fellow at the University of Free State, South Africa.

Review :
We all thought and wished and hoped that the education system would be spared, somehow, by some miracle. But like everything else, it has not been spared! Regime and Education in Zimbabwe is a surgical examination of how the ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe has destroyed the once glorious education system and turned it into a tool of ideological indoctrination. This is a must-read for all those who care about the future of education in Zimbabwe and those who want some lessons on how NOT to run an education system. This book takes a bold stance to problematize the nexus of the regime and education in Zimbabwe. Firstly, it locates the problem of education in Zimbabwe from state perspective. Secondly, it unmutes the voices of learners and educators who have for years been subjected to marginalization. Thirdly, it suggests various solutions to redirect education as a tool for development rather than repression. This book is valuable for post-colonial and decolonial thinkers to understand the role of the regime in the ambivalent educational terrain.