The Nziramasanga Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training of 1999 inquired into Zimbabwe’s education system with the intent of helping the government to rejig it where and when necessary.
The report did recommend among other things, the need for the introduction of Citizenship Education to the school curriculum.
This recommendation has remained a pie in the sky for Zimbabwean learners. It is the object of this opinion piece to discuss the need for the infusion of Citizenship Education into the schools system in Zimbabwe against a background of a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment where abstraction and digital communication have eclipsed physical human connection.
The Nziramasanga Report is as clear as day in recommending that Citizenship Education should form the bedrock of the education system in Zimbabwe as it is the monolith upon which human interactions evolve.
Citizenship Education by way of characterisation embodies an educational menu that raises one’s consciousness of one’s responsibilities, rights and duties as a citizen.
Where Citizenship Education is embedded in an education system, the whole idea is to socialise students into responsible citizens who put a premium on protecting, promoting and respecting the values and norms of their country.
It is envisaged that a student who has gone through an education system that essentialises Citizenship Education, can act with a sense of responsibility and duty towards his or her own country.
Essentially, Citizenship Education can border on inculcating in students an awareness of their individual and collective/cultural rights, morality, national identity, patriotism, sovereignty and hybridisation of Afrocentric and Eurocentric values.
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In light of the ever-changing realm where digital communities are fast becoming the norm, most Zimbabweans seem to have thrown away Ubuntu or Unhu (humanity) to the wind.
For this writer, technology that has brought about the digital communities, is like wind that should not be stopped by building a wall, rather it should help people to think about building windmills, so the benefits of the wind can be associated with positive outcomes.
The argument behind the simile of the wind and its potential positive outcomes with shared thinking is an argument of seeing technological developments as having both the potency to either make or destroy the human connection between and among Zimbabweans.
For example, when there is an accident, eye witnesses to the mishap take pictures and circulate them via social media.
This kind of behaviour lacks ubuntu that is largely associated with Citizenship Education.
Relatives of the deceased can learn about the death of their loved one via social media, something that is indeed devastating.
Observably, the comments that are often shared online regarding national issues, athletes, musicians, footballers and politicians are in most cases very distasteful, the shorthand used is often barbed and obscene.
If Citizenship Education is taught in our schools, chances are that Zimbabweans can interact with a sense of positive reciprocity, norms of civility and respect.
It is important to appreciate that human connection, whether digital or physical should remain respectful.
Citizenship Education has the potential of helping Zimbabweans to rally behind their flag.
Rallying around a country’s flag comes with a realisation that no one is bigger than the country and that citizens are diverse in their perspective of issues.
It means diversity can be harnessed to the greater good of the country.
Citizenship Education can be the glue that can help cement how people interact in different spaces in Zimbabwe with respect to doing business (industry and commerce), religion and politics.
Citizenship Education can potentially reduce political polarisation in Zimbabwe by helping citizens to appreciate that political persuasion is a matter of choice that ought to be respected.
It is indeed important that the recommendation by the Nziramasanga Report for Citizenship Education should be considered seriously by curriculum developers in Zimbabwe.
The country needs a collective voice when it comes to addressing political, social and economic issues, and this voice should be informed first and foremost by integrity, public and digital diplomacy.
In the absence of digital and public diplomacy, we destroy our own country through reckless and irresponsible utterances via social media.
Citizenship Education should be pitched in our schools to create a country that thrives on the moral economy, without the moral economy or the communal self, we are bound to interact with one another with suspicion, vertical and horizontal trust deficit. It is critical that schools should empower students not just with intellectual skills but also with the social and emotional intelligence that should help them to respect others as human beings.
Citizenship Education should be the pillar upon which schools are anchored because without it, our country is bound to produce citizens who are not sensitive to the feelings of others.
Aribino Nicholas writes in his personal capacity.
