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Internal Displacements and Education in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe: A Case of the Ndebele in Buhera District

Francis Musoni, Department of Curriculum and Arts Education, University of Zimbabwe
musonidoug@yahoo.com

Internal displacements in Zimbabwe are a phenomenon probably older than the modern nation-state itself. Indeed before the establishment of the colonial state of Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s, many inhabitants of the Zimbabwean plateau had been forced to abandon their homelands for other places due to a multitude of factors. However, the rate and magnitude of internal displacements in Zimbabwe increased during the colonial period, largely but not exclusively, as a result of the expropriation of the bulk of the country’s arable land by the white settler farmers. Post-colonial Zimbabwe has also witnessed several cases of people being forcibly relocated, again for a variety of reasons. One of the major effects of internal displacements in Zimbabwe has been the emergence of ethnic melting-pots in some parts of the country where people from different ethnic backgrounds were relocated together. Buhera district is one such place which became a home to many colonial ‘evictees’ of different parts of the country. Focusing on this district, the study examines the extent to which post-colonial Zimbabwe has sought to provide for the educational needs of the children of the internally displaced persons. In particular, the study is rooted in the narratives of an Ndebele community that had a school built specifically for its children after relocation during the colonial era, but later shifted from using Ndebele to the host community’s language as a medium of instruction. It explores why, how and with what impact has this set-up continued to exist up to this day.