The Role Of Indigenous Education In Contemporary Times:

Abstract

This inquiry was motivated by the observable ‘inadequacy’ of the pro-Western secondary education system extant in Zimbabwe which currently churns out incomplete beings - graduates who lack moral rectitude and are not job-oriented. The study is, therefore, conceptualised within a framework that incorporates: the notion of ‘colonial education as cultural imperialism’ up to 1980, the national ideological transformation since 1980, the Nziramasanga Commission Report of 1999 and the Updated Curriculum 2015-2022. Hence, Gade’s theory of ‘narratives of return’ and Sankofa provide the theoretical framework. As emerged in the review of related literature, firstly, holism, as an aspect of indigenous African education, is deemed relevant in the 21st Century Zimbabwe. Secondly, the prevalent legacies of colonialism justify the Africanisation movement, which, in itself, concurs with the fusion of indigenous African education into contemporary secondary instruction. Thirdly, though parochially confined to issues of morality and African values, the Unhu/Ubuntu philosophy is advocated to guide secondary education in Zimbabwe. Finally, advocacy is congruously strong that the agenda for refashioning Zimbabwe’s secondary education be anchored in Unhu/Ubuntu so that it addresses the above-said ‘inadequacy’. In terms of methodology, this study took the qualitative approach undergirded by the research philosophy of interpretivism, since the research sub-questions spearheading this inquiry are of a descriptive, exploratory and evaluative nature. The multiple case study design which is situated within the interpretivist paradigm was also engaged wherein the inquirer purposively sampled a total of 28 participants from Masvingo Urban, Zimbabwe. Individual interviews became the main research instrument, buttressed by focus group discussions, document analysis and observation. Findings from this empirical field investigation synchronize with what emerged in the review of related literature. Firstly, participants demonstrated a phenomenal appreciation of the inherent ‘wholeness’ of indigenous African education which epitomizes its relevance to a contemporary Zimbabwe. Secondly, most participants seemed to envision and treasure the possibility of Africanizing Zimbabwe’s secondary education. Thirdly, the majority of participants suggested Unhu/Ubuntu to inform secondary education and professed optimism by believing that this philosophy might be viable in a globalizing Zimbabwe. Most of these optimists, however, demonstrated a rather partial conception of Unhu/Ubuntu, as they portrayed it as a moral philosophy which informs only the education of the ‘heart’. Fourthly, in spite of the above-referred deficiency, these participants still managed to suggest meaningful strategies with which to refashion secondary education so that it expounds Unhu/Ubuntu. Basically, this implies great potential for Zimbabwe’s education ministry to achieve holism through integrating indigenous African education, which infuses Unhu/Ubuntu, into the current pro-Western secondary school system. The continued churning-out of incomplete graduates from Zimbabwe’s secondary school system demonstrates that the aforesaid potential is under-utilized. Therefore, this study recommends the integration of more aspects of indigenous education into Zimbabwe’s secondary education system and the corresponding refashioning of the same system on the basis of a fully conceptualized Unhu/Ubuntu philosophy, with a view to addressing the ‘inadequacy’ noted. To accomplish the foregoing, the current curriculum, which is observably centralized, needs to be decentralized so that it promotes active classroom teacher involvement in the correlation-integration of knowledge and instruction