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THERE is a feeling in many parts of Zimbabwe, particularly those concerned with the maintenance and promotion of national education, that the standard of what we generally term education has fallen in the past 15 years. The issue is not contestable in view of the well known historical fact that the country’s national economy started collapsing most seriously from just about that time, dragging down such social service institutions as schools and hospitals to an all-time low.

To keen and educated observers, the consequences of the economic decline whose very first effects led to the 1992 Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap), the Zimbabwean educational sector was bound to be adversely affected for a few decades if not for much longer.

As the nation is facing an election, it is important for all political parties taking part to educate their receptive members from the voter registration to the actual voting stage.

Education is usually aimed at two well known acquisitions: literacy and numeracy. Voter registration and actual voting represent and reflect political literacy and numeracy. When freedom fighters were calling for “one man, one vote” during the liberation struggle, they were, in effect, involving themselves in Zimbabwe’s political numeral worth in terms of votes, that is to say the total number of eligible voters multiplied by each adult person’s vote — universal adult suffrage.

This basic universal adult suffrage theory plus the property and educational qualifications that were always added on and against the oppressed black majority comprised the spirit and soul of the political discrimination of the settler colonial regime of various former British colonies, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) included.

It requires a relatively high level of political understanding for a community to seize its constitutional rights and turn them into practicably usable opportunities for its betterment. That process begins with the relevant local political leadership whose first and most important responsibility is to get every adult person in the community to register as a voter.

It is most common for politicians to complain about election results without having first made sure that voter registration had been carried out in the very first place. Elections are virtually won initially at the voter-registration stage because the larger the number of voters a party gets registered, the more likely it is to win the election.

Another area of interest is that of the national budget, a term that means in brief “revenue and expenditure.”

Revenue is the finance accruing to the government by way of taxes and loans. It is necessary to educate the people to appreciate the very basic fact that governments can raise revenue through taxation only up to the degree of taxability of the population, commerce and industry, and only as far as the commercial financial sector is able to and willing to lend to the government.

It is a reflection of arrogant ignorance about basic civic responsibilities of each citizen that some MPs take advantage of their elective positions to award themselves hefty financial and other morally illicit perks at whatever opportunity. They are not properly educated enough to appreciate that an MP’s most important duty is to husband through the law the government’s and national resources so that they can benefit the largest number of the country’s citizens.

A good legislator passes laws that benefit the largest number of people most of the time instead of a small number of individuals most of the time. Good education prepares its recipient to serve the nation selflessly rather than oneself selfishly.

Looking at our education system and its impact on the environment, we see effects of greed, self-interest promotion, and signs of wanton recklessness that has no concern or consideration whatsoever for posterity. It is indeed small wonder that the rhino and other animal species are in actual danger of extermination in Zimbabwe today.

We are now in the middle of the winter season when large areas of Zimbabwe are destroyed by veld fires intentionally started by some of us. It is a sign of either lack of education or of poor education that veld fires still occur in Zimbabwe.

It could serve a good national purpose for Parliament to stiffen relevant laws against veld fires and poaching.

The purpose of such laws would be to provide a punitive solution to this seasonal menace against Zimbabwe’s physical environment. We should understand, of course, that a government’s universal duty is to generate and apply solutions to local and national problems.

A government whose members or employees either steal or deliberately misuse government property or time creates problems, the exact opposite of what a government should do; formulate and apply solutions to the nation’s social, economic, political, cultural and international problems.

Social problems include shortages of either professional medical or educational personnel or material in hospitals and schools, whereas economic problems may be in the form of shortages of goods and services, leading to inflation, or a decline in business at large, leading to recession.
Political problems may be in the form of peaceful or violent demonstrations caused by ideological differences such as recent anti-capitalist demonstrations in London, or the well known post-World War II Italian troubles.

Cultural problems involve usually religious groups as is the case currently in Northern Nigerian, in Mali and parts of Chad, Niger and even Uganda.

International problems are experienced where either a boundary is in dispute or where cross-border raids by nomadic livestock owners are carried out as is the case along the Kenya-Somali border where the Maasai and their herds of cattle roam the veld.

In all these examples the governments concerned have acted and or are acting to apply solutions to the problems caused by parties other than themselves.

There have been instances where some non governmental organisations (NGOs) have been accused of causing political and even economic instability to some nations. An educated approach to such situations is to ask: “Is the NGO working with those who caused and are worsening the problem or is it applying a solution?”

There have been cases where both the Government and NGOs have claimed to be applying a solution; the government would be using legal sanctions and other administrative measures to resolve the matter while the NGO would be employing either the carrot and stick approach or purely welfarist method.

That there are differences between government policies and those of most NGOs is understandable: it is because governments are elected to rule but NGOs are created to assist. Governments enforce their decisions but NGOs consult to reach decisions some of which may either be indirectly or directly against government policy, especially if they are highly liberal and welfarist in an authoritarian political environment.

Various political leaderships have the responsibility to educate their publics, particularly on policy matters as stated in their respective manifestos. A highly literate and numerate electorate votes on the basis of policy guidelines rather than on tribal, regional or racial sentiments.

Zimbabwe was deeply satisfied with the way the majority of its people supported the new constitution earlier this year. There was no violence because there were no power positions at stake. There was nothing to fight for as individuals.

This time there is power at stake for each party and for each candidate. The political maturity of the people of Zimbabwe as enunciated by President Mugabe on 18 April 2013 should prominently feature as people exercise their inalienable rights to elect their national representatives. May there be no violence in word, thought and deed. That would be good education in practice.

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a Bulawayo-based retired journalist. He can be reached on [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> or 0734 328 136