Monday, 4 April 2022

Diplomas, Social Science, History, Art as the Base of Zimbabwe’s National Consciousness.

By Takura Zhangazha*

When we went to university in the late 1990s, it was a clear societal status symbol. In at least two respects.  Firstly, what you were studying and its implications for your professional/material future. Secondly, the unique recognition it accorded you, not only because it gave you some sort of ‘payout/student grant income’.  But also accorded you a specific societal status of being a chosen one because of your hard-won/studious or natural intelligence.

It was also a bottle-neck education system that was based on high school academic merit. Via an internationalized examination system as run by the colonial Cambridge education system.  Whereas in the 1980s it was easier to get into the only university, the University of Zimbabwe, with minimal Advanced Level (A level) qualifications and in order to do a particular degree of your choice, in the 1990s it had become much harder to qualify. 

Our tertiary education qualification system had become highly competitive particularly for university degrees.  And it had become increasingly hierarchical.  The more points at A Level one had, the more likely they would acquire a more ‘lucrative’ degree programme at the University of Zimbabwe.   And these were considered to be in Medicine, Engineering, Law, Accounting and Business Studies. In some instances, Economics or Psychology degrees would feature due to anticipation of the expansion the private sector in the age of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) as a narrative that was more popular at the time. 

The frowned upon degree programmes, even after qualifying were those that were in the fields of Political Science/Public Administration, the Arts, Sociology, Anthropology and Religious studies/Theology.  These degree programmes were considered the ‘no material future’ sort of academic pursuits.  They were neither fashionable in relation to the pro-private capital narratives of the time neither were they considered to be nationally important.  A point that I will return to later as being an ongoing national mistake. 

The preferred degrees were ones that fitted the economic system in relation to not only prestige but also material income.  It was always assumed within the post-settler economy that if one became or example a medical doctor, engineer, lawyer they were destined to be part of a particular elite section of society. By way of class and lifestyle. 

What was not noticed by the state/government at that time (1990s) was that such a class system was failing due to increased rural-urban migration based on desires for recognition of urbanized material progress via education. 

And this did not end at university level.  The multiple polytechnic and teacher training colleges remained harbingers of this same stated link between academic progress and recognition of material success.  From journalism, marketing, teacher training, journeyman, fitter/turner through to nursing, motor mechanics or agricultural diplomas. 

The particular catch became the fact that in our national tertiary education policies, assumptions of superiority of the university degree did not understand numerical realities for the future..  The assumed top notch degree programmes were always going to be overwhelmed by those that were considered inferior. Be they degrees or national diplomas. 

And this is where the key issue re-emerges.  Our bottle neck education system of the 1990s through to the early 2000s until after Mugabe expanded our childrens’ access to university education created a compounded national consciousness that appears to have run away from us. 

As at the height of ESAP, we scrambled for degrees that suited the economic times.  And even post graduate ones for that matter.  Except that the economic times were not defined by us.  But the global political economy.  The more degree and other programmes that we had access to, the more we have frowned upon the social science ones in the vain hope of creating a Silicon genius.  

What we have however recognized is effort and continually so.  The one that started with a diploma, now has a PhD or a Master’s degree as it is linked to polarized political recognition. We even had a former first lady that made it appear as though political power and education reflected that trajectory of individual success.  Materially and politically. 

What is however important in the contemporary is the fact that tertiary or as we refer to it, higher education, remains important for every young Zimbabwean.  No matter the course, diploma or the degree. Though it now comes at greater cost to parents or guardians.

Whereas before we would assume specific degrees were a one way course to material success, we now need to recognize the fact that every degree or diploma establishes a base for a specific individual or in rare cases, collective consciousness.  And that in a majority of cases it is the diploma that matters more than the degree.  An issue that we failed in our state post-colonial elitism to understand in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Even if cdes that initially acquired the diploma now have the degree(s).   

All of this however raises an even more important question in the contemporary.  Should we repeat the mistakes of a past where we assumed it was the natural sciences that mattered more in a globalized political economy?  Should we once again relegate the social and artistic sciences in order to fit in?  From my personal perspective, the answer is a basic ‘no’.  Our social sciences remain integral to our being.  Be they in history, culture, journalism, marketing, teaching. political science, sociology, anthropology or religion. And across varying levels of qualification.  Be they certificates, diplomas, degrees, Masters degrees or PhDs’.  That is where we are most human and even equitably competitive and counter-hegemonic (Netflix and chill anyone?)

Now let me return to our national higher/tertiary education mistake.  We assume that our social sciences are of limited consequence in the global political economy scheme of things.  Yet those we envy insist on operas, music shows, museums (where some of our ancestors continue to be exhibited) and narratives that reinforce their dominant hegemonic narrative.  The only thing to be said in conclusion is that where we ignore our own local social sciences and arts, we become a very shallow people.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) 

 

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