Deconstruction of higher education curriculum in Zimbabwe: breaking the past and imagining the future

Abstract

ABSTRACT Countries in Africa, which experienced colonization, are comparatively less industrialised with other parts of the World, notwithstanding having fortified mass university education during the post-independence era. These countries had inherited an education system that was defective because it created a worker rather than a graduate who could manufacture goods and services for the benefit of oneself and the community in which one was domicile. This phenomenological qualitative study informed by the decolonial inquiry drew from WhatsApp discussions and document analysis to report on African lecturers’ perspectives on how colonisation had worked against sustainable development in Zimbabwe and explore what could be done to the curriculum to drive that development. Findings suggest knowledge generated within what is termed a colonial matrix of power has left graduates with a narrow and limited understanding of themselves and their world, which is retrogressive to development. The study implores policymakers in Zimbabwe to re-imagine and reconstruct the HE curriculum and place research at the pith of education to drive sustainable development. This study contributes to debates on decolonisation and argues some African countries have had the tragedy of being made to read the wrong education manual for a long time and this must be deconstructed.