Psychomotor education: Key to higher production

When education solely focuses on achieving high grades at every examinable level, it is better calling it schooling rather than education.

ZIMBABWEANS could be said to be highly schooled with the best adult literacy rate of 92 percent in Africa.

Why then is the unemployment rate on the rise? Could it be the yawning gap between what is taught at colleges and what happens in the industry and in society?

It is against this background that his Excellency President Robert Mugabe sought a re-look at skills development for production, that is psychomotor.

There is need to continuously define the term psychomotor until everyone becomes conversant with the term.

Psychomotor could be termed the Fourth or Fifth Chimurenga for mindset change and focus on life skills learning for everyone in Zimbabwe.

The other definition for the psychomotor domain is “the synchronisation of the activities of the brain and the muscular activities of the body to produce observable movement (skill). Simply stated, psychomotor is learning by doing the actual thing”.

Please note that over the years, our education system was characterised by acquisition of theoretical knowledge in the confines of the classroom environment with very little or no emphasis on practice.

As we define psychomotor, it is essential to be reminded that the purpose of education is to enable one to adapt to a changing environment in order to survive.

According to Charles Darwin, it is not only the fittest that survives but the one that is most adaptable to changing environments.

Hence meaningful education system should be able to produce innovative and productive graduates who can be employed or create employment for themselves.

This is in sync with President Mugabe’s pronouncement when he stated that, “There is need to equip learners with knowledge, skills and values that guarantee economic growth and increased opportunities for employment creation, well-rounded citizens who are relevant nationally and competitive globally.”

The international community has realised that education and training are central to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), hence SDG Goal Number Four seeks to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all.”

Education 2030 agenda has, therefore, devoted considerable attention to technical and vocational and training skills development.

However, prior to the crafting of the SDGs by the international community in 2016, President Mugabe in his wisdom, had envisaged the need for technical and vocational skills development in transforming the economy.

Thus in 2013 he established the Department of Psychomotor Activities in Education.

The Department of Psychomotor Activities in Education’s major objective is to revolutionise the Zimbabwean education system that has largely been cognitive-oriented to one that emphasises on practical skills development for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship for the re-construction of the industry and production.

The drive towards psychomotor education in Zimbabwe is not a new phenomenon as shown by previous attempts to re-orient the education system from being academic to practical oriented.

The Williams Commission of Enquiry into Education (1971) unravelled the tendency of Zimbabwe education system to be too academic oriented, resulting in the establishment of a two-tier education system made up of F1 schools and F2 schools (which were also referred to as technical schools).

The idea of technical schools was, however, stigmatised since it was perceived as a system to produce labourers for the white man.

The entry qualifications into the F2 were inferior to those of F1 schools and the state of equipment in F2 schools was also inferior, hence they were regarded as schools for the less academically endowed students or “madofo”. At Independence, the idea of practical-oriented education was revitalised with the advent of “education with production concept” which was drawn from the experience that emanated from the attempt to educate refugee children during the war of liberation in Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia.Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production (ZIMFEP) schools were established as model institutions for education with the aim to ultimately infuse education with production ideas into the school curriculum.

ZIMFEP, which started as an NGO, had no examining board and no national standards, hence with the colonial mindset they were also labelled “zvemadofo” and the concept of education with production suffered a still death despite the fact that it was successfully yielding productive cadres.

Youth training centres were established in the early 1980s in order to equip those who had been disrupted during the liberation struggle with skills for enterprise and self reliance. The institutions have now been transformed into vocational training centres offering lower level skills for self reliance and employment creation.

Despite all the aforesaid efforts to transform the education system, it has remained largely academic as has been shown by the Commission of Enquiry into Education that was set up by President Mugabe in 1999, commonly known as the “Nziramasanga Commission”.

Graduates from schools, colleges and universities still come out of these institutions with little or no relevant skills for employment and or self-reliance.

It is of paramount importance, therefore, to de-stigmatise practical work and show that all meaningful learning lies in the application of knowledge and utilisation of learned skills (psychomotor).

School infrastructure and environment also needs to be made conducive for equipping students with practical skills. Parents should also participate in inculcating the culture of hardworking in the children from an early age. Children who were brought up in this noble culture of using their hands have never regretted and will never regret it.