Catholic schools: mission, markets and morality: a comparative study in Africa – the case of Zimbabwe

Abstract

Catholic education exists to attempt to transform people so that they become more responsible in their private and public life and as such the Church strives to build an education programme that enriches humanity through upholding Christian values. The investigation used in the study was based on the perceptions of school leaders and other education officials through the use of interviews in different Catholic secondary schools – a qualitative method. A number of issues emerged from the study such as the challenges in the shared meaning of Catholic education in different Catholic schools, the challenges in moral behaviours of students and the challenges in the multidimensionality (‘Multidimensionality’ in this study means people of different religious background in different Catholic schools) nature of Catholic education and what it teaches us. It has been found that despite these challenges Catholic schools in Zimbabwe remain focused on the Church’s mission of teaching the Catholic faith in Jesus Christ, a question of evangelisation, as a priority objective.