The contents of the newly introduced compulsory heritage studies subject has sparked outrage among some stakeholders in Matabeleland who expressed concern over the exclusion of some languages and cultures.
A Form 4 text book gleaned by Southern Eye on Sunday has most of the subheadings and cultural concepts and traditions predominately in Shona, while some of the cultures are not misrepresented and not found in Matabeleland.
For example, a word such as kurova guva is translated to mean umbuyiso in Ndebele in the book, which is totally different connotatively and in practice when it comes to the Ndebele community.
Rural Communities Empowerment Trust (RuCET) deputy chairperson, Thembelani Dube, said a people's heritage cannot be separated from their culture and language.
"None has the right to impose one's culture upon a society which has its own heritage passed from generation to generation,” Dube said.
“Heritage studies are meant to promote and consolidate local cultures and practices and not to be used as a colonial tool to subdue other social groupings in the name of education.”
Academic and leader of Freedom Alliance, Samukele Hadebe, said the heritage studies textbook must be withdrawn as it was not representative of all cultures, languages and traditions.
"We even documented and published views warning on the tendency towards promoting monolingualism and monoculturalism in a multilingual and multicultural society," Hadebe said.
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"But our warnings have been ignored by a triumphalist and hegemonic culture whose elite believes in entitlement and ownership of anything and everything Zimbabwean."
Hadebe said the heritage studies textbook was divisive in its current form.
“It smacks of ethnic chauvinism and underdevelopment of all other cultures so that only one language and its worldview dorminates while others are at the periphery," he said.
"It is the same arrogance we saw with attempts by Afrikaans to displace other languages and that was the turning point that led to eventual collapse of Apartheid."
Ibhetshu LikaZulu secretary general Mbiso Fuzwayo alleged that there is a deliberate distortion of people’s cultures, languages and traditions.
A retired educationist, Benny Moyo said the education curriculum should be used for nation building.
"But when a curriculum is insensitive to the diverse population in the country it only serves to divide the people,” Moyo said.
"The trivialisation of other languages and culture in my view is criminal and cannot build patriotic citizens with national consciousness.
"It further entrenches the divisions that are already there in the country."
Nkayi Community Parliament speaker Nhlanhla Moses Ncube echoed similar sentiments.
