MUGABE’S LEGACY: DEATH OF ECONOMY, DEMOCRACY, EDUCATION

By the time of his death, Robert Mugabe had taken down the most promising school system in post-colonial Africa, argues Jonathan Jansen

When Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe died in a Singapore hospital last week, reaction was split. The black political class in SA hailed him the unadulterated liberation hero who returned white farmlands to the black poor; “he made some mistakes along the way”, wrote an otherwise level-headed leader from a black opposition party here at home.

Many black Zimbabweans celebrated the demise of a political villain who oversaw the death of 20,000 people in the horrific Matabeleland massacre and single-handedly destroyed a country once called “the breadbasket of Africa”. The only people who got any land, our neighbours reminded us, were the political elites in the ruling Zanu-PF party.

South Africans struggle with holding two thoughts in our heads at the same time – that a liberation hero could also be a murderous tyrant. Our moral compass is so compromised that many of us think only in Manichean binaries – good or evil. But he gave Zimbabweans healthcare and education, insisted some. The healthcare claim can be swiftly dealt with – ask yourself the simple question why the leader of this African country for years on end received his healthcare in Singapore and not Harare.

Now let’s talk about education. As a doctoral student in California I informed my supervisor that I would do my fieldwork in Zimbabwe. To young people of my generation Zimbabwe had done something remarkable with its education system in the first decade (1980-1990) of independence; a liberated SA could learn vital lessons from reforms of schools north of the border.

The story of Zimbabwe’s radical new reforms was a myth. The bedrock of the education system was the church schools run by the Catholics and the Anglicans. Rooted in the strong parochial cultures of these established schools, academic excellence remained a marker of the post-independence period.

The most visible connection to the colonial system was the O- and A-level examinations run by the Cambridge Examination Syndicate; so much for decolonisation.

The one radical curriculum reform, something called the Political Economy of Zimbabwe, caused such an uproar it never even left the safe in the Ministry of Education buildings; so much for education modelled on Marxism-Leninism. Yes, say Mugabe acolytes, but he expanded education after the war. Actually, every postindependence government did that. In fact, the apartheid government did that too in the last two decades before democracy which is why SA had near universal enrolments in the 1990s. It is what governments do with taxpayers’ money – they build schools in response to popular demand. There is nothing revolutionary in the quantitative expansion of education.

But what about Zintec and ZIMSC – offered a colleague on social media? The Zimbabwe Integrated Education Course (Zintec) did provide teacher training by distance education for primary school teachers in response to bulging enrolments. Yet the major evaluations of Zintec showed limited quality impacts.

The Zimbabwe Secondary School Science Project (ZIMSCI) provided low-cost science materials for junior high schools in the absence of qualified teachers and laboratories; it was however highly prescriptive and the teachers resented the “teacher proof” concept. The best that can be said about Mugabe’s contribution to school education was that he did not destroy it – like he did with the University of Zimbabwe where he served as Chancellor and where his wife was granted a doctorate within a few months of enrolment.

Today the most talented of Zimbabwe’s students come to SA to study and they excel because of that bedrock of education provided to the elites in the church schools. The outstanding professors I got to know at the University of Zimbabwe can be found in the leading universities of Europe and North America and, thankfully, in SA’s 26 public institutions. More Zimbabweans graduate with PhDs from outside the borders of Mugabe’s depleted state university. It is too early to tell whether the private universities sprouting around the country will rise to become higher education institutions that merit the name.

Thanks to Mugabe, there is growing evidence that for those who remain the once-proud school system in Africa is collapsing. As journalist Geoffrey York recently reported, more than 20,000 teachers left the system in a two-year period because of poor salaries and political harassment. Drop-out rates are soaring. Textbooks are shared by up to six students per book and a plan to hire thousands of pre-school teachers has just been cancelled.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe did not only destroy the economy and undermine democracy. By the time of his death he also took down the most promising school system in post-colonial Africa.

For years he got his healthcare in Singapore and not in Harare