Gender Mainstreaming in Education in Zimbabwe: Mirth?

This paper assesses the extent to which policies and measures put in place by the Zimbabwean government in the post-independence era have addressed gender imbalances in the education sector at primary, secondary and tertiary levels in line with the gender mainstreaming thrust as propounded by the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Number 3. The analysis is done against the background of the Report on the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training (Nziramasanga, 1999) that recommended a school curriculum for Zimbabwe that incorporates the country’s spiritual, cultural and moral values, rooted in the philosophy of unhu/ubuntu, yet culture has often been cited as one of the major impediments to girl child advancement in education. This paper argues that although huge strides have so far been made towards the advancement of the girl child in education and in society in general, much work still needs to be done. The paper recommends that there is need for Zimbabwean communities to change their culturally embedded attitudes towards and perceptions about the education of the girl child, if meaningful development is to be realized in all sectors of the Zimbabwean society, education included. One concrete measure that the paper recommends, for instance, is that girls who fall pregnant while at school should be allowed to go back to their schools after delivery to continue with their education. If gender mainstreaming is not fully realized, then the girl child, and the woman in our society, will forever be treated as second class citizens. Consequently, their unhu/ubuntu will remain diminished, thereby casting gender mainstreaming in the Zimbabwean society in general and in education in particular a mere mirth, the paper argues.