A Call To Reform Our Education System in Zimbabwe*

BY KENNETH DUMBURA

There is a time when truth must be told and decisions be made. Many in the educated community need to unlearn the negative knowledge about themselves. *43 years* or more of brain washing has destroyed our identity and world view. Graduation is synonymous with coconut behaviour brown outside and white brains within.

The memorization of colonial propaganda has become the reference through which we judge ourselves and each other. Worse still once “educated” the levels of intolerance of African self is increased.

The African graduate must..

1.*Contextualize*: take the academic knowledge to the community of birth and stay. Be educated out there- but be relevant here at the village..

2. *Indignity*: build bridges of knowledge between formal and informal, academic and oral traditions, indegenous knowledge systems are as academic and complex, it will take passion and pride to preserve it. The educated of Africa are acting like uneducated as they turn a blind eye of their own wealth of knowledge in for love of foreign poison.

3. *Inculturation*: the library of the “white” man is in books, but the library of the African is in the spirit. The book through which we read the spirit is cultures, rituals and celebrations. To be “educated” and be uncultured is double jeopardy, the cultural vacuum and lack of self awareness/love/respect is filled with the dominant colonial culture.

Then you hear them say *”i dont believe in culture”* and they go to celebrate *white culture.* This is particularly visible in countires with high literacy rates like zimbabwe that you fail even to have a national dress and cultural fashion being made popular on the formal sector.

One can see the insurgencies of Nigerian materials and fashion, but total desdain of their shona and Ndebele fashion on the fashion streets. *Food, education and economy must trade in language as currency.*

To know ourselves must be at the center of all learning, to under/inner/overstand ourselves be the practice of our assignments and celebrate our culture as the ultimate fruit salad.

The gold mafias take advantage of an educated community which does not know itself or have knowledge of how to explore and exploit these reseources and create an indegenous business model which owns and trades in gold. They leave their gold fields, mines and farms to become garden boys, health care workers.

The educated and possibly the cream has left and want the country to be fixed by those who failed and remained at home. The attitude of the “educated” is arrogance of wanting to instruct others to do something as they can not soil their hands. You have 15 million people being supervised by 150 ..instead of the opposite. This breeds a spirit of entitlement, the question always is what can the country do for me…rather than what can i do for my country…Icho!

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