HE problems being faced by Zimbabweans are mainly scientific (ie, water shortages, electricity unreliability, housing shortages, food shortages, technological decline, health issues) and commercial problems (money shortages, poor salaries, high prices in shops, inflation and a weaker Zimbabwean dollar versus the United States dollar).
These problems are bedeviling Zimbabweans because colonial and post-colonial leadership is well-versed in the arts sector, and strongly lacks in scientific and commercial qualifications.
These leaders have been shooting in the dark as far as commercial and scientific solutions are concerned.
The most effective way to address these problems is for Zimbabwe to have a national leader with scientific and commercial qualifications; someone who has the capacity to decisively eliminate these problems.
Another solution is to rotate national leadership between arts, commerce and science after every five years.
The Holy Bible says in Hosea 4 verse 6: “My people are perishing because of lack of knowledge! Given knowledge, they have rejected knowledge! Because you rejected knowledge, I will reject you also.”
This means the Almighty God has already given us this knowledge which is found at official places of giving knowledge, ie, schools, colleges and universities where engineers are the best, followed by medical doctors.
Not supporting an engineer into national leadership is rejection of knowledge, which will lead to being rejected by the Almighty God and if one is rejected by the Almighty God, hell is waiting for you!
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In Proverbs Chapter 1 verse 28, the Holy Bible says again, “Even if you seek for me early, or shout at me, I will not hear you because you rejected knowledge.”
Someone I met said: “No, the knowledge being referred to is the knowledge of God only.”
My answer to him was: “My friend, you are trying to write your own bible.
“If God meant what you said, the Bible should have been written exactly the way you are saying.”
To me, the Bible refers to all forms of knowledge, including the knowledge of God, science and commerce.
Tendai P Munyanduri
Prioritise education so as to bridge the inequality gap
ACCORDING to the 2022 national budget, the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) assisted 446 844 vulnerable children with school fees, culminating in an outlay of $2 billion.
This was also complimented by development partners who assisted 175 592 children.
Nonetheless, this was against the four million children who are in need of assistance.
Thus, the BEAM failed to effectively bridge the educational inequality gap.
In 2022, government doubled the outlay figure culminating in an allocation of $4,1 billion.
Hypothetically, if one is to estimate the number of the children who were assisted last year (2021) and multiply by two, equals to 893 688 children, a figure way below half of the four million children in need of assistance.
Therefore, government needs to prioritise education with the intention to bridge the educational inequality as this is vital for the attainment of Vision 2030, which seeks to harness optimum human capital development for national growth.
According to the Unicef 2021 Zimbabwe Annual Report, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the learning of a staggering 4,6 million boys and girls in Zimbabwe.
Approximately, 68% of pre-primary aged children (three-five years) and 47% adolescents (13-18 years) are not in school.
Due to such an immense impact, Zimbabwe has been trying to develop alternative mechanisms of ensuring continuity of learning.
Nevertheless, the proposed e-learning method is way out of reach with many students in the rural and marginalised communities failing to access internet due to unavailability of data bundles, smart phones and electricity.
The proposed alternative also failed to capture the reality on the ground as it could not address the issue of school dropouts.
A 2022 education fact sheet by Unicef shows that there was an increase in school dropouts as approximately 50% of children are not in school.
In addition, the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) released the 2021 Advanced Level results. The Advanced Level results revealed that the pass rate rose by 3,68% compared to the 2020 results.
However, the impact of the pandemic and rise in poverty also resulted in the decrease in registration of candidates for major exams. A 2,03% decrease was witnessed with 49 128 candidates registering compared to 50 287 in 2020.
The reduction in the numbers of students who registered with Zimsec did not come as a surprise to the Zimbabwe Coalition for Debt Development (Zimcodd) as it carried out an article in its weekly review lamenting how 30 000 students had failed to register.
This points to weak social protection policies with respect to education as the BEAM was not sufficient to cater for all students in need.
Zimcodd
More news overridden, omitted for a few ‘super elite’
IN response to an article titled Colonialism was not an event, but a long-term project of global control in the NewsDay edition of September 26, 2022, with all due respect, Queen Elizabeth II was one person, however, beloved and special to many people.
Yet so much very important news, notably worldly suffering and tragedy, was being overridden and omitted to make available as much newsprint and broadcast-time as possible for her.
And I’m not the only news-consumer troubled by this clear inequity involving news coverage.
Every time I turned to the national news channel, day or night, it was various forms of this.
A renowned newsman once justly accused the Western world’s news coverage and consuming as callous and unbalanced: “A hundred Pakistanis going off a mountain in a bus makes less of a story than three Englishmen drowning in the Thames,” said the reporter.
Frank Sterle Jr
