New curriculum, institutions of heritage
HERITAGE Institutions are organisations that work within a subculture for the preservation and promotion of culture and heritage. The introduction of the new curriculum has integrated Heritage Studies; which focuses on the relationship between people, tangible and intangible heritage through the use of Social Science research methods.
Over the last two decades there have been conversations between government, non-governmental organizations, the business world and other social facets in Zimbabwe about the nature of the educational system.
There are several institutions of heritage in Zimbabwe which include The National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, the National Archives of Zimbabwe and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is exceptional in that it houses a myriad of artworks that resemble culture from far back as the inception of art making in the country.
The kind of education and the historical legacy left by colonial dogma is still affecting the preservation of intangible itineraries. The struggle in the management of intangible heritage in Zimbabwe is also a mirror of the struggles between generations. Heritage Studies refers to a combination of the study of our culture, inherited traditions, monuments and our symbols.
Government, through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has now shifted emphasis from content to competency in a bid capacitate young Zimbabweans for emerging economic and cultural needs.
The new curriculum aims to prepare learners for a largely entrepreneurial economy in our increasingly globalised environment, encourage lifelong learning and promote patriotism, participatory citizenship and sustainable development among other objectives.
Education, as a part of culture, has the twin functions of conservation and modification or renewal of the culture and is thus conceived as a systematic effort to maintain a culture. In its technical sense education is the process by which society, through institutions such as schools, colleges, universities, deliberately transmit its cultural heritage, its accumulated knowledge, values and skills from one generation to another.
Education is an incontrovertible instrument of cultural change. Education can impart knowledge, training and skills as well as inculcate new ideas and attitudes among the young as it is culture in which education germinates and flowers.
It is the culture also upon which education exerts, in turn, a nourishing influence. The intimate relationship between culture and education is evident from the fact that one of the major aims of education is to impart to the child cultural heritage and social heritage.
Just as culture influences education, also influences culture of a country. Heritage and culture institutions play a pivotal role in transmitting culture and heritage as it perpetuates the past and present history heritage. These help in culture preservation, development, continuity, transmission, development of personality and removal of cultural lag.
The act of preserving entails conserving, protecting and maintaining. Cultural Institutions ensure Cultural preservation. Every nation has its own way of life (culture). Hence cultural institutions preserve culture in its distinctive original form. This can only be archived through education. The introduction of Heritage studies from primary to secondary level will ensure culture preservation as students are socialised as education is a socialising agent.
The process of preservation includes the process of transmission from one generation to another. Thus through the transmission of culture one is able to trace the development of a nation over the years.
The function of cultural institutions is to bring the needed and desirable change in the cultural ideals and values for the progress and continued development of the society without which social progress cannot take place. The function of education is to bring the needed and desirable change in the cultural ideals and values for the progress and continued development of the society without which social progress cannot take place.
Education inculcates in an individual with the necessary skills to modify cultural processes by research and deeper investigations into all areas of human requirements.
Culture Institutions promote the continuity of culture. Culture is a life breadth of a society. Without which a society is bound to decay. These Institutions of Culture uphold the continuity of culture through its diverse activities and programmes.
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is a Culture Institution where culture is preserved through exhibitions. Its permanent collection has several collections representing diverging cultures. With the advent of the new Curriculum Introduced by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary education culture will be preserved, promoted, transmitted from generation to generation much more vigorously and effectively.