Education 5.0 is a policy that has been adopted by government with a specific focus on inculcating in educators and students idea generation and idea implementation. It is sound on paper and weak on implementation because of a gamut of factors.
This paper intends to evaluate the Education 5.0 policy against individual factors such as expertise, motivation, personality traits, cognitive factors, social skills and attitudes of idea generators and implementers within the purview of project management.
Education 5.0, in terms of idea generation, is underpinned by five pillars, which are community service, lecturing, research, innovation and industrialisation. These pillars should be viewed as complementary.
This augmentation in terms of project management embraces cross-functional collaboration between and among team leaders, members, and consumers of idea generation and implementation among other stakeholders.
Education 5.0 in the legalese of project management is an ideation that potentially can have an impactful outcome, which can be defined in terms of its capability to offer services and products to Zimbabwe and beyond. However, for any idea generation to be effective on implementation, there are individual factors to be considered. These factors constitute the centre of gravity for innovation. Expertise is critical in idea implementation.
Without job knowledge, innovation suffers a stillbirth. An examination of Zimbabwean education reveals that curriculum innovation is done without any engagement of street level bureaucrats such as educators who are at the point of service delivery.
For example, for the Heritage-Based Education Curriculum, educators and their organisations were not involved in its development. Every other paraphernalia associated with curriculum change such as books and syllabi were not ready at the time of introduction.
Essentially, this was a professional earthquake for educators who were found napping, without relevant official properties and epistemic values to cope with the innovation.
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Motivation in the process of change is the lubrication of idea implementation. Educators at every level are not happy about salaries.
They lack internal and external motivation to drive idea implementation. For any innovation to be successful, there is need for a supportive work environment. Educators are more worried about moonlighting than the four walls of the classroom.
Personality traits of teachers are also of paramountcy in driving idea implementation. These personality traits may not be homogenous, but are triggered by internal and external environments.
Generally, educators no longer have that zeal to work because idea generators brought into existence a policy that is not supported in terms of organisational practices, culture and resources.
Idea implementation cannot be effective, efficient, sustainable, coherent and impactful when educators’ personality traits no longer put a premium value on their work.
Attitudes can either make or break idea implementation. The attitudes of most educators are at odds with Education 5.0 because idea generators have not considered the fact that a goose can only lay golden eggs if it is fed.
For example, for research, community service, lecturing, innovation and industrialisation to take shape, educators need resources. Educators need to be equipped to realise the success goals of Education 5.0.
They have since stopped investing in hope so their attitude is corrosive to idea implementation. Cognitive structures of educators are experiencing dissonance. This dissonance comes with split attention — to stay put or leave Zimbabwe.
Cognitive dissonance is not protective or promotive of idea implementation because it causes educators to defocus from the trajectory of idea implementation.
For any policy to succeed there must be singleness of focus and fixity of purpose between and among idea generators and implementers. Idea implementation requires social skills from those people at the point of both idea generation and idea championing.
In the case of Education 5.0 idea generators have lacked social skills. They have not engaged in eyeball leadership that would be significant in giving them feedback.
Ivory tower mentality of idea generators has promoted border protection and operational silos in the education sector to the extent that a minister of education thinks he or she is the be-all and end-all of epistemic values.
Idea generators of Education 5.0 should realise that business is not only transactional, but also relational, communal, sacred and ethical. Idea implementers have families to feed, children to send to school and rentals to pay.
My humble and innocent submission is that until idea generators realise there are critical individual level factors that influence idea implementation, Education 5.0 may remain a pie in the sky.
Nicholas writes in his personal capacity.
