The ManicaPost
LATELY schools and colleges have cordially invaded newspapers with glowing narratives of how well they are performing in public examinations – how they have defied whatever odds to achieve ever improving pass rates.
They all have a good story to tell. Excellent! Many are true stories . . . many are not! It is not the true stories that are as worrisome as the not-so-true ones. Honest observers become seriously worried if faked results and lies become part of history. It is very worrying.
Schools and private colleges must be reminded that not all readers, especially parents, are yes-men and women who believe every thing they read or hear. Readers are intelligent enough to distinguish fact from exaggeration, factual truth from “marketing” and sheer lies from executive fabrication.
The epidemic levels of corruption that have diseased the fabric of Zimbabwean society does not exempt or leave out the education sector. If churches have become havens of cheating, lying and abuse, what more of havens of corruption have schools and educational institutions become?
Churches have publicly succumbed to the weight of corruption and the symptoms are manifested in numerous intriguing ways: false prophecies, blatant lies and ungodly abuses of the poor to enrich the “clever” entrepreneurially skilled church leaders and pastors, embezzlement of church funds and abuse of church properties, daylight adultery and fornication — stinking prostitution and sexual abuse of the girl child. The list is too long to exhaust here. Lately a church assembly had a collective audacity to launch a “jihadist” war against law-enforcing agents and journalists in Budiriro, Harare.
Clinics, hospitals, the transport industry, journalism, tender boards, employment councils all have not been spared from the corruption virus infection. Government efforts to cure the chronic disease are not unnoticeable but ironically the harder they try, the worse the symptoms seem to proliferate. Anyone who says this does not happen does not live in Zimbabwe.
We know as Zimbabweans of certain Ministry of Education officers and officials privileged with the responsibility to recruit teachers and staff schools have bought cars, new stands and houses, and married new wives with the money extorted from desperate teachers seeking teaching posts or needing transfer from one school to another.
It is common knowledge how teachers, many teachers, have literally bought teaching posts and transfers to get to desired schools.
Why must we believe them when they wake up tomorrow claiming hundreds of “As” or “Bs” in one examination? Why must we trust miracles in education if we doubt them in our own churches?
Are supposed to celebrate if we are told a school has overnight improved from a zero percent pass rate to a 40 or 50 percent pass rate? How do schools with hectorages of lemons, instead of making lemonade, end up producing raspberry syrup? How? How do collieries produce gold, tell us? How do semi-literate pupils win essay competitions in these schools?
Does anybody think people do not know what people do if they are made to compete for prizes? Does anybody think people do not have an idea how ‘‘clever’’ people ride on cheating, lying and posturing to win awards and accolades — to win names, fame and promotions?
If impostors have become heroes and heroines by faking and claiming heroism, how can poor schools and performers fail to claim good stories to tell?
We applaud genuine achievement and meritorious awards, but strongly scorn empty advertorials.
What is your take on fake good stories to tell? Be my guest on TEACHERS’ FORUM. I want your feedback, views and opinions on this matter. Your real name and particulars are not necessary.
Just your straight talk to Teachers’ Forum, one-on-one with MM! And you are done!
Don’t miss Part 2 of this scintillating discussion next week. Be part of it! Until next week please enjoy your job. Teachers are thinkers and nation builders, but not through silent observation and unapplied intelligence. Let’s talk.
