Education 5.0 was formulated under Rhodesia, so why did Zimbabwe dump it at independence?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

Each time I hear the Mnangagwa administration proudly trumpet the introduction of the so-called “Education 5.0,” I cannot help but ask a deeply troubling question: why is this being packaged as a revolutionary and innovative idea, when there is absolutely nothing new about it in Zimbabwe?

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This educational model is not a post-independence invention.

It is, in fact, a reincarnation—albeit a far weaker one—of the education system that existed in this country before 1980, deliberately designed and almost exclusively reserved for white Rhodesians.

The core elements of Education 5.0—practical skills, applied research, innovation, industrialisation, problem-solving, and education directly linked to production—were the backbone of the Rhodesian education system.

That system did not exist to churn out certificate holders hunting for jobs.

It existed to produce farmers, engineers, technicians, artisans, industrialists, manufacturers, researchers, and innovators.

Education was not an abstract academic exercise; it was a tool for building an economy.

This is precisely why Rhodesia, despite being a small country with a tiny population, managed to build a highly diversified and resilient economy.

It had a strong manufacturing base, advanced commercial agriculture, a functional mining sector, efficient infrastructure, and a remarkable degree of self-sufficiency.

It is also why, even after Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 triggered comprehensive United Nations sanctions—real sanctions, not the selective measures we hear about today—the economy did not collapse.

The country adapted, innovated, substituted imports, developed local industries, and survived.

That resilience was not accidental.

It was produced by an education system deliberately crafted to create problem-solvers and producers.

What has always puzzled me, therefore, is why the post-independence government chose to abandon this highly effective educational model and replace it with a far inferior one—the very system that had been imposed on Black Africans under colonial rule.

That colonial “African education” model was never meant to empower.

It was deliberately underfunded, overly theoretical, and limited in scope.

Its purpose was to produce clerks, messengers, general hands, domestic workers, and low-level employees who would serve a white-dominated economy, not challenge or lead it.

It trained people to look for jobs, not to create them.

This puzzle is not academic for me; it is deeply personal.

I belong to the generation that began primary school in 1980, at the dawn of independence.

I was moved to a formerly “white school” in Redcliff.

For a few years after independence, the old Rhodesian education model remained largely intact in these schools.

The difference was immediately noticeable.

The curriculum was more demanding, more practical, more analytical.

The textbooks were more advanced.

There was greater emphasis on mathematics, science, technical subjects, and critical thinking.

The same applied when I went to high school at a former “white school.”

In those first two years, our education was significantly more advanced than that offered in what were commonly referred to as “secondary schools,” which were largely former “black schools.”

Then something strange happened.

By the time my late father—a trained teacher—was transferred to teach at this very same former white school in the 1990s, the system had completely changed.

The curriculum had been replaced.

The textbooks we had used were gone.

What had once been a sophisticated, production-oriented model now closely resembled the very system my father had used when teaching at a former black school in Rutendo nearby.

I witnessed the same decline at my former high school.

The question haunted me then, and it haunts me now: why would a post-independence government deliberately choose an inferior education system—one that we all knew had been designed to keep Black people subordinate—over a system that had demonstrably produced innovation, industrialists, and economic power?

At independence, the national narrative was one of reclamation.

We moved into formerly white suburbs.

We attended formerly white schools.

We assumed positions and occupations we had been barred from.

Political power had changed hands.

So why, at the very foundation of national development—education—did we reject the very system that had enabled white Rhodesians to dominate the economy?

Perhaps the reasons lie in ideology.

Perhaps anything associated with colonial Rhodesia was reflexively rejected, regardless of its effectiveness.

Perhaps there was a misplaced belief that mass academic education, focused on certificates and degrees, was synonymous with empowerment.

Perhaps political expediency demanded rapid expansion of enrolment numbers, even at the expense of quality and relevance.

Or perhaps there was a deeper fear that a technically empowered, economically independent population would be harder to control.

Whatever the reasons, the consequences have been devastating.

Zimbabwe sacrificed generations of young people on the altar of a broken educational philosophy.

Millions were trained to seek employment in an economy that could not possibly absorb them.

When that economy was later destroyed by disastrous policies, endemic corruption, and gross mismanagement, those millions had nowhere to turn.

They left.

Teachers, nurses, engineers, artisans, graduates of all kinds scattered across the globe—not because sanctions chased them away, but because an economy hollowed out from within could no longer sustain them.

This is why comparisons with Rhodesia under sanctions are unavoidable.

Why did we not see mass emigration then?

Because people had skills to innovate, to produce, to adapt.

They could farm, manufacture, mine, repair, invent, and trade.

They were not helpless job seekers at the mercy of a collapsing state.

Today, with Education 5.0, the government appears to have finally realised—decades too late—that education must be tied to production, innovation, and industrialisation.

But instead of being honest about its origins, it is presented as a novel invention.

Worse still, there is a dangerous temptation to “reinvent the wheel,” as if history has nothing to teach us.

If Zimbabwe is serious about transforming its education system, it must do something far more courageous: study how the Rhodesian system actually worked, strip it of its racial exclusion, and deliberately adapt its strengths to today’s realities.

Not romanticise it, not replicate it blindly, but learn from it honestly.

Innovation hubs without industries, degrees without factories, and research without funding will not save us; learning itself is meaningless without basics such as proper schools, classrooms, and books.

If handled properly, there is no reason Zimbabwe cannot return to the levels of productivity, innovation, and self-sufficiency it once had—this time benefiting all its people, without racial segregation or oppression.

But that requires intellectual honesty.

It requires admitting that dumping the Rhodesian education model was one of the most catastrophic policy mistakes of the post-independence era.

Education 5.0, if it is to mean anything, must be more than a slogan.

It must be an admission that we once had the answers—and chose to throw them away.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/