Chimbunde, Pfuurai
3 Publications in AERD
Author Publications
Export PDFDeconstruction of higher education curriculum in Zimbabwe: breaking the past and imagining the future
By Chimbunde, Pfuurai
Countries in Africa, which experienced colonization, are comparatively less industrialised with other parts of the World, notwithstanding having fortified mass university education during the post-independence era. These countries had inherited an education system that was defective because it created a worker rather than a graduate who could manufacture goods and services for the benefit of oneself and the community in which one was domicile. This phenomenological qualitative study informed by the decolonial inquiry drew from WhatsApp discussions and document analysis to report on African lecturers’ perspectives on how colonisation had worked against sustainable development in Zimbabwe and explore what could be done to the curriculum to drive that development. Findings suggest knowledge generated within what is termed a colonial matrix of power has left graduates with a narrow and limited understanding of themselves and their world, which is retrogressive to development. The study implores policymakers in Zimbabwe to re-imagine and reconstruct the HE curriculum and place research at the pith of education to drive sustainable development. This study contributes to debates on decolonisation and argues some African countries have had the tragedy of being made to read the wrong education manual for a long time and this must be deconstructed. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Is the implementation of the ICT curriculum in low income schools in Africa swimming against or with the tides? The case of selected schools in Zimbabwe
By Chimbunde, Pfuurai
The launch of the new Zimbabwean curriculum in 2017 was fraught with challenges in terms of access to digital tools and usage. This case study deep-seated in the qualitative approach examines the nature of digital divide in Zimbabwean secondary schools drawing reference from the implementation of the new 2015-2022 Zimbabwean curriculum in which ICT is embedded. Informed by van Dijk's (The deepening divide: Inequality in the information society, SAGE, 2005) theory on resources and appropriation, the study made use of in-depth interviews and observations to generate data from six purposively sampled School Heads drawn from three rural and three urban schools. Results suggested that, while the introduction of ICT as a learning area had created a pathway for equity in life chances for all learners in the digitalised world, it also continued to entrench and maintain social stratification, thereby perpetuating the happiness of the already privileged. Thematic analysis demonstrates that the Zimbabwean education system while trying to correct the colonial inequalities continues to be plagued with digital divide challenges with regards to equity in context of ICT implementation which created and cemented inequalities in life opportunities. This study recommends that governments; schools and local communities mitigate the life inequalities through the resuscitation of the Schools Computerization Programme (SCP), resource mobilisation and the establishment of free cyber centres in low income schools where the children of the poor learn.
Funding the online teaching and learning in developing countries: insights from Zimbabwe
By Chimbunde, Pfuurai
While the outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019 threatened educational activities in Higher Education globally, it renewed the interest in online learning and teaching in developing countries. To frame our understanding, we employed the Technological Readiness Index lens to investigate the institutional needs necessitated by the sudden uptake of online teaching and how these needs could be funded in one of the developing countries in Africa.15 Heads of Departments (HODs), working in different universities across Zimbabwe, participated in the in-depth interviews and WhatsApp discussions to generate data. Findings replicate that while HODs noted the indispensability of online teaching to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), universities were confronted with trenchant institutional needs, for example, the absence of well-trained personnel, poor digital infrastructure and cyber security of which most of them emanated from inadequate funding. Considering this, the study proposes that rather than depending on traditional donor and stakeholder quota funding, governments of developing countries must liberalise internet trade markets through legal frameworks to de-monopolise the provision of internet services to reduce costs of erecting digital infrastructures and provision of services. This study, provides insights and extends scholarship on other funding strategies available for the digitalization of education in higher education.
© 2026 AERD Database System. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Strategic Technologies.