Neighbourly lessons in education

20 JAN 2012 10:35 MARTIN PREW

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Why is the schooling

system in Zimbabwe still outscoring

the South African one?

It is common knowledge that the Zimbabwean schooling system is starved of funds, was
the victim of national economic meltdown in the 2000s, has lost thousands of teachers
overseas, pays those who remain less than R1 500 per month and spends per learner a
fraction of the norm in South Africa. But in the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium
for Monitoring Educational Qualitys 2007 report Zimbabwes grade sixes scored higher
than South Africas in both maths and literacy: 507.7 in literacy and 519.8 in maths,
against 494.9 and 494.8, respectively.
These are significant differences and the reasons for the discrepancies in performance
between the two systems have become a matter of public debate in the past few weeks.
There has been some talk about the two systems being so different that comparison is
problematic. It is true that all systems are unique, but the use of international student
achievement comparability surveys assumes that education systems can be compared.
In fact, the two systems are not so different. Both were affected by conflict and both used
race as the filter for access to quality education under settler regimes. If anything, access
by black students to schooling in South Africa before 1994 was considerably higher than
in Zimbabwe before independence. Given the historical and educational similarities, comparison is legitimate and should be instructive.
After independence in Zimbabwe, Dzingai Mutumbuka, minister of education during the
1980s, left the schooling system that Zanu-PF inherited largely intact and focused on
expanding access by building a large number of new schools, providing textbooks,
recruiting more teachersincluding committed expatriatesand, overall, treating
teachers with respect as an important element of the revolution taking place in
Zimbabwe.
From strength to strength
The result was an education system that went from strength to strength. The first major
shake-up in the curriculum came only in the late 1980s. Until that point there had been syllabus-based changes that had reinforced and built on teachers knowledge and
experience. For example, ZimSci was introduced as a new science syllabus with
considerable teacher support.
In South Africa the multiple curriculum and policy changes started soon after 1994 and
were regarded by many teachers as undermining their knowledge and experience. At the

same time many experienced teachers were encouraged to take voluntary severance
packages. These factors combined to destabilise the system. Whereas Zimbabwe
expanded its teaching force and built new colleges of education, South Africa reduced its
cadre of teachers and closed all the teachers colleges, moving the training of teachers to
resistant universities.
The international literature accepts that these education systems were coming out of
conflicts that would leave both systems traumatised. The stabilisation, reinforcement and
then building of the Zimbabwean system led to success. The impact of the war of
independence on the schools faded fast and Zimbabwe soon had one of the highest
access as well as literacy and numeracy rates in Africa. This approach created the
strength on which later reforms were built.
In South Africa the constant changes after 1994 destabilised the system and the
education outcomes, although often improving somewhat year on year, have left South
African students trailing in international comparability studies, even though the schooling
system absorbs huge amounts of money. This approach has not dealt with the trauma in
the system following apartheid; instead it has compounded the hurt.
This, though, is not the whole story. South Africa could learn from two other features of
the Zimbabwean education system: the centralised management of schools and the
model of teacher training. The centralised approach means that resources, even though
minute in comparison to those available in South Africa, are targeted at where they are
most needed, as are teachers. Zimbabwe has a truly national system of education. It
means that the unions cannot gain the hold they have obtained in South Africa, and
instructions and information can flow more quickly and easily in both directions because
they do not get stuck or filtered at provincial level. The Zimbabwean system is reactive
and responsive and it enforces teacher accountability through school inspection.
Teacher training
Perhaps, though, the most telling difference between the two systems is in the training of
teachers. Zimbabwe has a system of teachers colleges, both technical and academic.
They are mostly run by the government, which oversees and controls the employment
and performance of all staff.
The Zimbabwean teacher-training model is particularly interesting. As a result of the
Zintec experiment in the 1980s, which was designed to fill the gap in primary-school
teacher supply after independence through a form of teacher apprenticeship, teachertraining colleges adopted a two year in, two year out model in the late 1980s. The
student teachers first year was spent in college and focused on core subject knowledge
and pedagogy, with considerable use of role-playing.
Year two was spent in school with a partial workload. Year three was spent back in college
to focus on extending subject and teaching knowledge, while also dealing with problems
identified in year two during teaching practice. Year four was spent in school with a nearnormal teacher workload and some supervision. In recent years this model has been
modified, but a considerable part of the teaching course (more than 50% for trainee
primary teachers) is still spent under supervision in school.
This model has a number of advantages over the South African university-based system.
Student teachers get to practise their future craft in a real school and they add to the
schools staff and are thus welcomed. Because they stay for an extended period, they
can be built into the schools time-table. The model also allows the
ministry to cover staffing gaps in rural schools by deploying both student and newly
qualified teachers there.
We could also talk about the way education is positioned in the national psyche and how
communities engage with their local schools, but hopefully the point has been made:
South Africa could benefit from a better understanding of the Zimbabwean education
systemone that would throw useful light on ways of improving our struggling system.
Dr Martin Prew is director of the Centre for Education Policy Development. He worked for

the Zimbabwean ministry of education from 1982 to 1992 and for South Africas
education department between 2002 and 2007.