Against the Marginalisation of Western Pedagogics in Postcolonial Zimbabwe

Abstract

The current textual analysis juxtaposes Western pedagogics with Zimbabwe’s instructional methodology as currently encapsulated in the Curriculum Framework for Primary and Secondary Education for period 2015-2022. This framework is a principal document that continues to enshrine Zimbabwe’s education system while it undergoes review. Thus, the reflection estimates the applicability of Western pedagogics (as informed by Western philosophies) to Zimbabwe’s postcolonial education system. This undertaking comes against the background of Education 5.0 which occasioned the ongoing move by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development [Mo HTEISTD] in collaboration with the University of Zimbabwe [UZ] to scrap Western educational philosophies like idealism, empiricism, pragmatism, progressivism and social reconstructionism from Zimbabwe’s teacher education syllabus. Hence, the author is explicitly perturbed by the imminent disregard of Western philosophies and their respective pedagogics as a result of the unmistakable over-exaltation of the heritage-based philosophy within Zimbabwe’s new teacher education syllabus yet to be implemented. In the process of juxtaposing Western pedagogics with Zimbabwe’s instructional methodology, the author observes strong congruence between the former and the latter. Notwithstanding a few points of divergence between Western pedagogics and Zimbabwe’s instructional methodology, the former is applicable to the latter. The current reflection, therefore, demonstrates beyond doubt that the idea of peripherising Western pedagogics (on the grounds that it is informed by Western philosophies)is more emotive than rational. This article, thus, implores the MoHTEISTD and the UZ to revisit with due sobriety their position of wanting to excise Western philosophies and their respective pedagogics, and consider restoring the same to their rightful place in Zimbabwe’s teacher education syllabus so that the country’s entire education sector remains of global resonance.