The Standard
8 March 2009
Written by Giyani “Titsha†Moyo of Bulawayo
HEARTY congratulations on being appointed Minister of Education Sport, Arts and Culture, arguably the most sensitive and vital after that of the Prime Minister.
The ministry is very important because the responsibility of educating our children and the nation building lies solely in your hands.
Forget about Ministry of Defence, we are not at war with anyone nor is there a possibility of any in the near future.
Forget about other ministries because without adequately educating our children, today we surely can forget about any responsible, learned workforce to take our country forward in the future.
Knowing you the way I do in your political and civil life — a fierce campaigner for civil and political rights, I’m confident that you shall face the challenges of your new job with the same aplomb, commitment, diligence and intelligence that characterized your previous elections into parliament.]
I write you this letter as a friend, parent, teacher and citizen of this great country which, you will agree with me, has been denigrated and adulterated by virtueless men and women with no conscience, sympathy, rationality and wisdom.
Since 1999, teaching students and general public the principle of democracy which opened the way of thinking of our people towards the alternative political thought analysis of constitutional reforms and sheer comparison of offers from competing rivals was the teachers’ crime.
They were viewed as the single most potent vehicle of multi-party democracy change orientation that saw the people, rightly or wrongly, rejecting the proposed new Constitution of Zimbabwe in the referendum of 2000.
The concept of democracy is innocent in the primary school curriculum in social studies existing only as as a subject called Rules and Laws as from Grade One! For adequately teaching that topic teachers were rewarded with poor conditions of service, non-existent salaries, systematic psychological torture and the violence that was waged on teachers resulting in the mass exodus to UK, US, SA. You will also have noted the numerous deaths and abject poverty levels bordering on extermination.
Teachers are among the most hungry, emaciated, poor, property-less, dirty, demotivated, denigrated, desolated, forlorn, and without supportive friends and relatives yet we are so full of sacrifice each time we stand among our students.
The ministry of education has had the most lacklustre ministers from car thieves (the Willowgate Scandal), exam leakers and clueless village heads combined with ministers of public service who were more often vindictive against teachers than they care to be remembered as having been change agents.
I know it all. I lived through it and I felt it. In this new era of openness I have the guts to say it now.
Zimpapers have no moral right to lecture teachers on the new dimensions for education as shown by some of their recent writings. They were accomplices in the oppression of teachers and education, as if being wordsmiths gave them the ultimate intellectual superiority over all to sermonize on education as a priority of the new government!
You now have a perfect opportunity to rewrite the script and usher in a change we all can believe in.
There is a need for an all-encompassing Education Indaba — but this should not be compromised by over-fed and spoilt chefs of Harare’s office corridors, who falsely claim a monopoly of solutions to every problem.
As the new minister, you will also need to engage the parents in the townships and in the rural areas. Education has reverted back to be a preserve for the rich.
Why should there always be calls for teachers to be patriotic during the worst of problems nationally as if they eat patriotism? Theirs is a profession where there is nothing to steal for re-sale in order that they survive by putting food on their tables.
I hear there are attempts to woo back those of us who fled, migrated or submitted to cowardice and chose a “safe†life away from this madness we went through? What of the heroes who braved it all and sacrificed to remain behind, do you fail to reward them with a real “thank- you- Maqhawe�
Real change is what we stayed home to shape, not arrogance and impudence.
I will have failed to congratulate you adequately if I concluded this without mentioning that I intend to mobilize all parents of children attending school in our great country into an institution that will hold you accountable in the delivery of education to our children.
This will be unprecedented but I’m sure you obviously are very passionate about social justice.
Only then will democracy have triumphed and national healing achieved when the education field is levelled for all children without regard to socio-economic background.