Zambezia (1980), VIII (i).DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION ANDEMPLOYMENTAN ANALYSIS OF ZIMBABWE, TANZANIA AND KENYA*VERITY S. CUBITTCentre for Applied Social SciencesA. W. DOCK and M. J. ROBSONScience Education CentreUniversity of Zimbabwe1979 WAS A YEAR of impending change Š change that was without form orconcept. Speculation was rife while planners anxiously awaited policy direction.At that time we felt the need to point out certain realities in Zimbabwe'seducation and employment potentiality, and to distinguish facts from thefantasies.In this paper we have identified four major premises which underlieexisting educational and employment strategies. We call these 'conventionalwisdoms'; and in them we have tried to pin down the implicit assumptionswhich too often are taken as 'givens'. These conventional wisdoms can besummarized as follows:1. Resources to satisfy the demand for education will be availablewhen the war stops and aid flows in.2. Education will generate the required wealth and development.3. People are unemployed because they do not have enougheducation or training.4. In the fields of education and employment all that we needto solve our development problems is more of the same.As we demonstrate in this article, the facts argue differently, and those con-ventional wisdoms are shown to be false. Zimbabwe stands poised for changeand the need is for close analysis of opportunities open to the country ifdevelopment and progress are to be assured.The post-independence experience of two African countries, Tanzaniaand Kenya, is well documented. Despite their conflicting political philosophiesthere are certain similarities in the outcome of their different approaches todevelopment problems. In the light of their experience, how can we in Zimbabweavoid the onset of apparently inevitable trends in Third World education andemployment developments?This article does not claim to be a blueprint for action although we pro-pose a number of alternatives to conventional ideas about education and* This article is based on a paper that was presented in the Development Studies Series ofpublic lectures at the University of Rhodesia on 20 June 1979.6364 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTemployment. If we have made the point that education and employment aretwo sides of a coin, we have made a start. Real change ripples throughoutall levels of the system Š let this change be the result, not of ad hoc adjust-ments to points of the system, but of an integrated and holistic approach tothe realities of burgeoning Zimbabwe.CONVENTIONAL WISDOMSResources for DevelopmentThe first conventional wisdom is the belief that resources to satisfy the demandfor education will be available when the war stops and aid flows in. Theunderlying assumption here is that resources currently wasted on the war, plusresources in foreign aid for education that have been denied to Zimbabwe,would be sufficient to provide universal education. The facts argue differently.(i) Demand for Education: There are approximately 7 million people inthis country. Of these 1.5 million are children under school age; 1.5 millionare potentially primary school children; 0.75 million are potentially secondaryschool children; and 3 million, are potentially productive adults.1 Also,assuming an annual population growth rate of 3.6 per cent a year2 we estimatethat each year a further 50,000 children become potential primary pupils, afurther 25,000 become potential secondary pupils, and approximately 100,000new potential producers or workers move onto the labour market. Currently,of potential primary pupils 60 per cent are actually in schools, or can be whenthe situation returns to normal, and 8 per cent of potential secondary pupilsare in school or can be when the situation returns to normal.(ii) Cost per Pupil: A new primary school place (including teacher training,school buildings and equipment etc.) costs approximately Z$350 to establish.A further Z$150 would be required each year to maintain that school placeonce created. Given the potential number of primary pupils and the costsper pupil, a sum of Z$435 million would be necessary now to create sufficientplaces with a further ZJS225 million annually to maintain and service them.To keep pace with population increase, an additional Z$25 million (andrising) would be required for new places and their maintenance each year.To establish one new secondary school place would currently cost aboutZ$3,000 with a further Z$l,000 per annum to maintain that place.4 Giventhese costs and 0.75 million potential pupils, a one-off payment of Z$2,850million now plus a further Z$750 million each year would create and maintainsecondary school places. To keep pace with rising population growth, anadditional Z$100 million per annum (and rising) would be needed.1 Rhodesia, Supplement to the Digest of Statistics: January 1977 (Salisbury, Central Statis-tical Office).2 J. Hanks, 'The population explosion in Rhodesia and the consequences of unlimitedgrowth', The Rhodesia Science News (1973), VII, 249.3 Rhodesia, Proposals for a Five-Year Programme of Development in the Public Sector(Salisbury, Ministry of Finance, 1979), 32.4 Ibid.VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 65(Hi) Financing Education: We have then some idea as to the extent of thedemand for and cost of education as the system currently exists. But to talkabout millions of dollars is usually meaningless to an individual. What is thevalue of one or one hundred million dollars? If a developing country isgiven a million dollars in unconditional aid, is that a lot of money, somethingto be grateful for, or is it trivial in terms of a whole nation? In Zimbabwe,one million dollars would be fourteen cents each. One million dollars wouldkeep all the schools open for about three days, or it would have kept the civilwar going for a further sixteen hours. In terms of national needs then, it isobvious that one million dollars is not much money. On the other hand,Z$100 million would mean about Z$14 each, for every man, woman, childand infant. It is a meaningful sum of money, and will be used as a unit todiscuss the possibilities open to this country.Internal ResourcesThe following summary shows the country's current (1979) capacity to generatewealth and its expenditure in education and defence.One year'sFarm ProductionMineral ProductionManufacturing ProductionWarEducation (at current levels)Z$ (millions)6003001 450500100Until we increase our production efforts and capacity, there is a limit to theamount of internally generated resources which could be spent on education.One might imagine that with the end of the war, money previously spent onfighting could be diverted instead to education, making about Z$600 millionavailable per year. However, the diversion of defence monies into educationwould not substantially change things. In the development process, money isneeded not only for education but also for industrial development, job creation,rural development, infrastructure development etc. In such circumstances, itis likely that Treasury will find something of the order of ZS200 million peryear for education from internal sources.External ResourcesOverall foreign aid to education for the whole world in 1978 was estimated tobe approximately Z$10,000 million. That was for the whole world. Of this,the substantial proportion directed to Africa works out at about Z$10 perhead per year. At that rate, Zimbabwe could hope, at best therefore, toreceive around Z$70 million annually for education purposes. So whateverthe actual figure, it seems that foreign aid to education will be less than theamount that could be raised internally at the cessation of the war. From thisanalysis, it can be predicted that approximately Z$270 million a year couldbe made available for education once a political and military settlement hasbeen achieved.Thus it is clear that universal primary education could not be achieved66 iimmediately, although it is within .reach should we choose to spend themoney that way. Universal secondary education OR the other hand could notbe achieved in its present form.Therefore the conventional wisdom that resources to satisfy the demandfor education would be available when the war stops and, aid flows in is notsupported by the facts.Education as Investment in DevelopmentThe second conventional wisdom, which states that education will generatethe required wealth and development, requires us to review the relationshipbetween education and development.Bowman and Anderson5 used straightforward measures of literacy andof per capita income to seek some correlation between these two variables.They showed that all countries with less than 40 per cent literacy Were inthe poorest bracket, that is less than Z$300 per capita per year, and allthose with over 90 per cent literacy were in the richest bracket, where percapita income was over Z$500. But for the countries in between there wasvery little correlation between the two variables. It thus seemed that there isa 40 per cent threshold; sustained economic growth does hot begin until 40per cent of the population are literate, but increasing literacy beyond this doesnot have any obvious direct effect on economic growth.Accordingly, primary education and adult education aimed at raisingthe literacy rate to above the magic threshold are important. But what ofsecondary and tertiary education? Studies here have found only a small andambiguous relationship to economic growth.6 There is a small but positiverelationship between secondary and primary school enrolments and subsequentincome levels, but among the less-developed countries the higher a countryranked in tertiary enrolment levels in 1950, the more it was likely to have
sunk in the economic performance rankings by 1965. Dore writes:The evidence from these studies is confused, but at least not in-consistent with the hypothesis that. . . schooling for the purposesof education may well contribute to economic growth, but schoolingin pursuit of certification less probably so; that the world is havingmore and more of the latter kind of schooling than the former,and that this is particularly the case for the developing countries.Thus one might expect a declining positive correlation betweenthese countries' enrolments and growth rates Š and even theappearance of negative correlations.Additional evidence in the form of a study across 53 countries confirms thislack of causal relationship between quality and quantity of school and econo-5 C. R. Wharton Jr, 'Education and agricultural growth: The role of education in early-stage agriculture', in C. Anderson and M. Bowman (eds), Education and Economic Development(Chicago, Aldine, 1965), 202.6 R. Dore, The Diploma Disease (London, Allen & Unwin, 1976), 86.VERITY S. CUB1TT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 67mic performance.7 ,.,_..Common sense tells us that there must be some relationship betweeneducation and economic prosperity. But in Zambia as we know, there isoften no soap for sale in the shops and milk is often imported from Denmark.In Zambia, money has been poured into secondary education for at leastfifteen years. So far, then, there has been in Zambia, an unsatisfactory pay-off from educational investment, in terms of soap and milk, and other crudeindicators of economic prosperity. Common sense suggests, therefore, thatthe relationship between education and economic prosperity must be a verycomplex one. It is not at all clear how paying vast sums of money for largenumbers of pupils to learn about rift valleys, isosceles triangles, the kings ofEngland and Archimedes' principle is going to lead directly to increased milkand soap production several years later.As yet, then, there is no positive proof that education generates wealthand development.UnemploymentThe third conventional wisdom refers to the belief that people are unemployedbecause they do not have enough education or training.Of the approximately 3 million adults (excluding the 0.75 million potentialsecondary school pupils) in Zimbabwe, 1 million are in some kind of cash-economy employment. A further 100,000 job-seekers enter the labour marketeach year. It is estimated that the creation of a conventional urban-sectorjob would co'st roughly Z$9,000 to create and a further Z$ 1,000 per year perjob to service in the form of housing, public transport, police and watersupplies.A summary of these estimates and hence the cost of 'full employment'is shown below:New Jobs for 2 million People Z$(millions)Two million jobs at Z$9,000 each 18 000Running expenses for 3 million peoplein employment at Z$l ,000 each per year 3 000Extra jobs needed to pace populationgrowth at Z$10,000 each per year 1 000For comparison, Government Budget1979/80 1000Clearly these sums are unobtainable when we cannot find sufficient invest-ment capital to create 100,000 jobs each year and freeze the current absolutenumber of unemployed. At present rates the existing (inherited) economy hasthe ability to create only 22,000 new jobs annually,8 although 25,000 jobsKS5KJ t0 P« fOf * Five-Year68 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTwere actually lost in 1978 due to the economic decline in Zimbabwe. ',It is thus not true to say that people are unemployed because they do inot have enough education or training. They are unemployed because they Łdemand urban-sector jobs for the creation of which there is just not enough Iinvestment wealth available. Too often the interdependence of the economy iand the education system is overlooked. The economy, or Wealth Creating 'System, produces wealth which can be invested in various ways. It may be ,re-invested in the creation of new jobs or in the provision of education.Either way, one aspect of the system loses to the other. If too much wealth ibe directed into education, the supply of new employment opportunities islikewise reduced.More of the SameThe fourth conventional wisdom we have identified is the belief that ineducation and employment all that we need is more of the same. It is Tgenerally believed that the existing academically-based curriculum is a satis- ifactory basis for all types of employment. It should be obvious by now thatthis is just not true. In the first place we cannot have more of the same edu-cation because we just cannot afford it in its existing form, and secondly weshould not have more of the same education because it does not lead directlyto economic development. CIn employment this 'more of the same' philosophy is ably demonstrated IŠ if not made explicit Š in the many manpower studies done elsewhere inAfrica: Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana.9 While the primary aim ofManpower Planning might be localization of available jobs, it assumes con-tinuity of the inherited economic structure and occupational hierarchy. 'Techniques of conventional manpower planning clearly show this assumption.The first stage is an inventory study of existing skills and occupations; this '-baseline data permits an identification of skill shortages and thus an estimationof future needs. Finally recommendations are made for future school,university and vocational training output. (On this basis there is no space for re-structuring parts or all of the system.Here, the oft assumed relationship between education and jobs falls awaybecause where there are skill shortages, instead of planning for greater outputx years ahead, immediate action can be taken: retraining can be effected, jobs ire-defined or modularized, expatriate skills can be contracted or, in the extreme,the finished goods themselves imported.Clearly 'more of the same' takes a static view of what is a dynamic andpotentially flexible employment system.THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHYWhatever their particular political philosophy or ideology, Third World9 C. Stoneman, 'Survey of African experience with manpower planning', in ZimbabweManpower Survey (Dar-es-Salaam, Patriotic Front, 3 vols, 1979), II, 15 - 20.VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 69Governments are faced with rising unemployment and demands for educationand jobs. Whether the individual is idealized as a skilled cog in the industrialsector of the community or as a self-supporting individual, politicians arefaced with inherent conflicts between what the nation needs in terms of man-power, and what the people want. The four conventional wisdoms identifiedappear to hold across a variety of economic and political systems. We identifytwo competing philosophies within which framework the problems of nationaldevelopment are tackled. These two can be identified as capitalism largelyoriented towards the needs of the individual, and socialism largely orientedtowards the needs of the community and nation. Any developmental planningembodies aspects of both philosophies in varying proportions. The weightingof those proportions and the areas they embrace dictate the character of theparticular development scenario.Common to all such scenarios is the assumption that education Has apositive role to play. Not quite as obvious, is the assumption, questioned byThomson,10 that schooling has a role to play in development strategy.Thompson argues that in the Third World, since schooling beyond primarylevel cannot realistically be offered to all and since there is evidence to showthat vocational skills are inappropriate at this level, greater attention shouldbe devoted to the field of non-formal adult education when thinking in termsof development. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Thompson's contention,it is indisputable that schooling is an urgent felt need of the masses. Accor-dingly, and irrespective of their political philosophies, planners are facedwith resolving a fundamental conflict between education for all, as a politicaland social objective, and education for manpower development, as an economicobjective.Before considering the constraints operating in the Zimbabwe contextand the character of development that these constraints are likely to produce,we/will consider briefly two African scenarios in which the weighting ofcapitalism and socialism are dramatically different.TanzaniaTanzania is a relatively poor country with a G.N.P. of U.S.S130 per capitafor a population of some 13 million, of whom 95 per cent live in ruralareas." The development policy adopted has been one in which a socialistphilosophy predominates.On the educational front the goal is universal primary education, with asecondary system limited to the requirements of national skilled manpowerneeds. In 1970, nine years after independence, only 44 per cent of childrenaged seven years entered primary school. However, by 1977 universal primaryeducation was an attainable objective. The declared policy of relating secondary10 A. R. Thompson, 'The quest for relevance in education in Africa: Some considerations',Zambezia: The Education Supplement (1977), 50.11 T. Simpkins, Nonformal Education and Development: Some Critical Issues (Manchester,Manchester Univ. Press, Monograph 8, 1977), 44.70 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTschool expansion to manpower requirements has resulted in a steady declinein the percentage of children entering secondary schools (approximately 12per cent entered in 1970, 7 per cent in 1974). The intention has been to createfor secondary education the image of being a vital component of nationaldevelopment but not a 'consumer product' available to all. In practice, be-cause of the large number of unemployed secondary school graduates alreadyon the market and the proliferation of private schools caused by parentalpressures for more secondary education, the annual number of secondaryschool graduates significantly exceeds the manpower requirement. This hasresulted in a curriculum shift towards technological and vocational skillssince many school leavers must become self-employed.In the first and second five-year plans the Government had middle andhigh-level manpower studies carried out. Arising out of those studies fore-casts were made which in effect were goals to be reached. The first manpowerforecast (1964) predicted an increase in middle and high-level manpower of44,117 over the period of the plan. A survey carried out in 1969 showed anear perfect match of 44,102.n During the second plan, however, when man-power in the same categories was planned to rise from 44,000 to 80,000, theincrease was an enormous 184 per cent to 125,0O0.13 The vast majority in thisunplanned increase were primary school leavers with only non-formal post-primary experience Š showing clearly that Government planning was not pre-venting the migration of workers to the urban areas and white-collar employ-ment. (A related figure is that 36 per cent of the Dar es Salaam populationlive in uncontrolled settlements.14)A major criticism of Tanzanian manpower planning is that, althoughconscientiously implemented and in part achieved, it remains technologicallyarrested and assumes 'more of the same' in terms of the occupational cate-gories and the inherited pre-independence economic structure. Inevitably thepriorities for development as seen by the individual citizen conflict to somedegree with Government developmental strategy.We have shown that the Tanzanian educational strategy has been toprovide secondary education only to the extent that it is justified by manpowerrequirements of the economy. Government has achieved this by trying tomaintain strict control over entry to secondary school, further training anduniversity. The fact that only partial success has been achieved is due largelyto the continued demand from the masses for secondary education as an exitroute from the rural areas. It is then no accident that Nyerere sees as one ofthe main objectives of the other component of the Tanzanian educationalsystem, the non-formal sector, 'to understand our national policies of socialism12 M. A. Biesfeld, 'Planning people', Development and Change (1972 - 3), IV, 51 - 77.13 Stoneman, 'Survey of African experience with manpower planning', 18.14 P. Van Hoffen, 'Rural Progress as a Means of Dealing with Urbanisation in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia' (Salisbury, Associated Chambers of Commerce of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, AnnualGeneral Meeting, paper presented, 1979).VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 71and self-reliance'.15 The establishment and rapid growth of the adult non-formal education system has perhaps been the most impressive of Tanzania'sattainments Š particularly if one agrees with Thompson. Enrolment has ex-panded from 360,000 in 1970 to 1 million in 1972 and 3.5 million two yearslater.16Adult education has been a vital component of the Ujama-village scheme,providing a means of alleviating the poverty of the rural-based population Ša major Government priority. The third five-year plan (due for completionin 1979) envisages the training of 45,000 Ujama chairmen, secretaries,treasurers, storekeepers and managers in three-month crash programmes heldthroughout the country at the rural training centres. Training is offered inthis same period for eleven priority skills, such as masons, pump mechanicsand carpenters. Such training is given without certificates in an attempt toprevent the drift to urban areas once an individual is qualified.Thus, in summary, by means of an authoritarian, socialistic structure,the Government of Tanzania has imposed changes upon the people whichhave been resisted by the individual and have only been partially successfulin slowing down the drift to the towns. The pressure from the masses formore secondary education as a means of escape appears unrelenting and willonly be modified by significant success in the achievement of changes inattitude induced through the non-formal adult programmes.KenyaOur second example, in which the philosophic weighting favours capitalism,is that of Kenya.Kenya in the early 1960's provides one of the most relevant com-parisons with Zimbabwe in the late 1970's: the population wasapproaching 10 million (as compared with 7 million) with aboutquarter of a million non-Africans (although numerically dominatedby Asians rather than Europeans).17Like Tanzania, Kenya is primarily an agricultural country with 90 per cent ofits population living in rural areas. Unlike Tanzania, economic growth hasbeen substantial since independence, averaging 6-7 per cent a year.18 Mostof the growth has occured in the modern sector (industry and tourism), whileagricultural development has lagged. One result of this imbalance has beenincreasing urban unemployment caused by an accelerated drift of would-beworkers from the rural to urban areas faster than the expanding economy canabsorb them.J. K. Nyerere, 'Adult Education Year speech, 1971', quoted in B. Hall, Participation andEducation in Tanzania (Brighton, Univ. of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies, DiscussionPaper 86, 1975).16 Stoneman, 'Survey of African experience with manpower planning', 19.17 Ibid., 15.18 Simpkins, Nonformal Education and Development: Some Critical Issues, 38.72 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTThe 1965 development plan prepared by the Ford Foundation was builton the conventional wisdom of the causal relationship between education anddevelopment. It called for a massive expansion of both the formal primaryand secondary-school systems. In the period from 1963 to 1973 enrolments inprimary schools rose from 900,000 to 1.5 million and in secondary schoolsfrom 30,000 to 130,000.19 During the same period Kenya's manpower planningremained focused on the urban industrial sector. The demand for CategoryA (university graduates) was met although the distribution across the rangeof degree subjects was poorly matched with developmental needs. In CategoryB (senior administrators) the output of the schools fell short of estimateddemands by more than 20 per cent, while in Category C (skilled techniciansand clerical workers) the shortfall was a massive 84 per cent, and in CategoryD (skilled manual occupations) only 348 of the 2,732 required were suppliedby the school system.20 The urgent need for apprenticeship and formaltraining schemes was noted but priority continued to be given to the expansionof the formal secondary system. This expansion policy was essentially linearwith a high academic content oriented towards examinations controlling pro-gress up the ladder. Wastage in the form of failures and dropouts was con-sequently high. Dore, quoting Kinyanjui,21 points out that from an unemploy-ment ratio of less than 1 per cent for O-level graduates in 1967 there was ajump to 15 per cent in 1968 and by the early 1970s the problem was recognizedas acute.The second five-year plan called for still further growth of the formalsecondary system at 7.2 per cent a year until 1974,22 despite recognition ofthe fact that only children with technical skills were likely to find employment.Still clinging to the 'more of the same' policy, the plan stated that the onlyhope for increased employment was more rapid economic growth. As alreadystated the growth was achieved but only in the urban sector, further empha-sizing the inequalities between the rural and urban societies. An I.L.O. Em-ployment Strategy Mission to Kenya in 197223 revealed the inequality dra-matically by pointing out that the bottom 40 per cent of families received 10per cent of the income as did the top 1 per cent!Simkins states24 that 'despite the rapid expansion of the secondary systemonly about 1/3 of primary school leavers find places, another 1/3 repeat thelast year of primary school and the remainder (about 54,000 in 1972) leaveand enter the labour market'. Having embarked on a policy of acceding topopular pressures for more and more academic schooling (a system in whichibid.Ł' 1D1U.20 Stoneman, 'Survey of African experience with manpower planning', 16.21 P. Kinyanjui, 'Education, training and employment of secondary school leavers in Kenya',in Manpower and Employment Research in Africa (1977), VI, ii, quoted in Dore, The DiplomaDisease, 68.22 Stoneman, 'Survey of African experience with manpower planning', 16.23 International Labour Office, Employment Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for IncreasingProductive Employment in Kenya (Geneva, I.L.O., 1973), 93.24 Simpkins, Nonformal Education and Development: Some Critical Issues, 39.VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 73successful individuals are qualified only to move higher up, and unsuccessfulfailures to minimal prospects of employment), the Government has beenforced to support the growth of tertiary and non-formal post-primary edu-cation in the shape of village polytechnics. Initially established by a varietyof voluntary organizations, the polytechnics have received increasing Govern-ment support over the past five years. In 1973 the Government funded 67polytechnics with a population of 4,000 trainees and the target for 1977/78was 250 institutions with 22,500 trainees.25 In assuming responsibility for thisaspect of education the Government is hoping to shift the emphasis awayfrom the academic 'upwards progression' and towards more immediate andrelevant skills Š particularly those of value in rural areas.The Ministry of Co-operatives and Social Services is quite explicit:A village polytechnic is a low-cost training centre in a rural area.It aims at giving primary school leavers [and presumably un-employed secondary school leavers] from that area skills, under-standing and values which will make them able to look for money-making opportunities where they live, and to contribute to ruraldevelopment by building up the economic strength of their owncommunity.26The implementation of these aims depends very much on the vision of theindividuals founding and developing the polytechnics. Indications are thatwhile many have made significant advances in providing terminal educationmany more are beginning to yield to pressures for conventional academiccourses. Curricula are becoming standardized with a low-key role for agri-culture. Examinations and certificates have gained a foothold, while teachingis tending to become authoritarian and classroom-oriented by staff who areemployed on the basis of formal qualifications rather than relevant experience.Parents and trainees continue to judge the value of the courses by the degreeof access that they offer to urban employment Š a judgement which isreceiving paradoxical reinforcement from employers who are showing signsof beginning to prefer polytechnics to general secondary qualifications.Starting therefore from a diametrically opposed philosophical premise inTanzania and Kenya, we have arrived at similar end-points: more and morepeople seeking higher and higher academic qualifications with the aim offinding urban employment in an economy which cannot expand rapidlyenough to absorb them.There is one other important consideration which perhaps conceals thehint of a route out of this dilemma. Even if rural education schemes ofeither the Tanzanian or Kenyan pattern can be made to work, there is afundamental limit to the capacity of the rural areas for absorbing the productsof such schemes productively. A balance must be maintained between a con-25 Ibid., 40.26 Kenya, How to Start a Village Polytechnic (Nairobi, Minister of Co-operative and SocialServices, 1971).74 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTtinued inducement to develop the rural areas and the continued growth of theindustrial, manufacturing and tourist sectors. Such a balance suggests acompromise curriculum which contains an academic core providing the basisfor national economic growth and an alternative route to modern-sectoremployment as jobs become available, while retaining a strong rural self-sufficiency bias to provide a working base on which development may occur.It appears that this balance has not been achieved in either of ourscenarios. We cannot stress sufficiently the point that education and employ-ment cannot be tackled as separate issues: that manpower planning can onlybe effective if integrated with a supporting education system.ZIMBABWEIn Zimbabwe have seen that there are an anticipated 100,000 coming ontothe labour market each year (of whom according to the Five-Year UrbanDevelopment Plan27 only 70,000 will obtain jobs). The cash economy simplycannot cope. Thirty thousand people each year will be frustrated and unem-ployed. While this is a drain on the economy and a waste of potential energy,unemployment in such proportions has serious political and social implications,which this economy could not contain. We might then usefully use the ten ormore years' experience of other African countries which have faced similarchallenges. Significant changes of approach to the development process shouldbe kept in mind: agricultural development has moved to the forefront ofdevelopment strategy; the cry for 'more schools' as the panacea for all illsis heard with greater scepticism; labour intensive technology becomes politi-cally acceptable as does 'intermediate' or 'appropriate' technology. Finally'unemployment' does not have the same meaning in the peasant-basedeconomy as it does in an urban industrial economy, since the urban employ-ed still retain some rights in the land.What then do we see as the likely patterns and contingent challenges inZimbabwe? Firstly, we take as given that there is a large reservoir of workersin the formal sector economy with informally acquired skills and/or longexperience in the industrial economy. There will be, in addition, returningZimbabweans with, as yet, unknown skills and experience gained elsewherein Africa and overseas. In these regards, Zimbabwe is probably better offthan most other African countries at independence. It is the quality andquantity of skilled personnel currently in wage employment inside the countrythat has been under investigation by a Manpower Study Unit (under theauspices of the Whitsun Foundation and the University of Rhodesia). Despitethe scepticism about the relevance of complete manpower studies (especiallytheir forecasting value), there remains considerable value in initiating thedata collection/inventory stage. It is from the basis of such data that we areable to direct policy decisions realistically.27 Rhodesia, Proposals for a Five-Year Programme of Development in the Public Sector, 12.VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 75The above analysis of two diametrically opposed development philoso-phies Š socialism in Tanzania and capitalism in Kenya Š suggests the inex-orable emergence of similar end-points. Mass-felt needs force the expansionof certificating secondary-school systems which result in a trained manpowerprofile that is distorted out of sympathy with national needs.We have tried to point out the nature of the crisis in education and inemployment and can identify five forces operating in each.Education(i) the student flood, released by a burgeoning of expectationsand enlarged by a population explosion;(ii) the scarcities of resources, which are insufficient in the faceof demands from the student flood for more teachers,buildings, equipment and textbooks; in the face of thesedemands scarce resources are diverted from economicdevelopment and job creation into education, and so threatento strangle the economy;(iii) rising costs, due to the fact that education remains a labourintensive 'handicraft' industry;(iv) unsuitability of output, in which it is becoming clear thatwhat we are teaching and what we are turning out are ill-fitted for the times, so that the economies of developingcountries cannot absorb the human output of the educationalsystem, and so cause educational unemployment; and(v) inertia and inefficiency, by which educational systems haveclung to their old methods of administration, syllabus,curriculum and teaching methods, the self-contained class-room, the means of teacher training, and the whole tradition-al scene.In the face of this crisis we suggest a number of radical alternatives to theconventional system of education.(i) Cost effective teaching with higher productivity. Coombs writes:the issue is whether it is necessary, desirable and possible to recastfundamentally the whole of education's technology, combiningthe best of. the old and the modern in ways that will form anessentially new, integrated 'system' of teaching and learning,capable of yielding better results for any given level of effort.28We can deal with this issue with more elan if we realize that the basis foreducation's technology was not decreed by one man. Today's technology ofeducation is mainly the product of a great historical stream made up of trialand error, occasional outbursts of great individual ingenuity and persuasion,of long practice and imitation, and of sheer habit. Take the pupil - teacherratio as an example. It is one of the most sacrosanct of education's articlesof faith. It has withstood the repeated siege of research results which suggest28 P. H. Coombs, The World Education Crisis: A Systems Analysis (New York, OxfordUniv. Press, 1968), 112.76 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTno fixed relationship between the size of a class and how much is learned.Other variables obviously have more to do with what is learned Š variablessuch as the quality of the teacher and the parents, the supply of teachingmaterials, the style and tone of the school, the health and nourishment ofthe pupils. Where, then, did the concept originate that a 25:1 or 30:1 pupilto teacher ratio was the 'ideal' to be aimed at? An enterprising historianfinally traced the matter back to a doctrine derived from the Talmud BabaBathra which contains this instruction: 'One teacher is to have twenty-fivepupils; if they be fifty, then two teachers must be appointed; if they be forty,the teacher has to have an assistant.'What is needed is for teaching to move away from its air of traditionalhandicraft and move into an area of greater productivity and cost effective-ness.If teachers are given better tools to work with Š such as moreand better textbooks and other teaching materials, or languagelaboratories, or a teacher's aide to handle clerical and housekeepingchores, or good quality instructional radio or television program-mes Š they may be able to teach more pupils, and the pupils maysucceed in learning more in a given hour or academic year thanunder the previous combination-of factors. The teacher himselfmay not 'work' any harder. However, he may enjoy his work agood deal more. With better tools, his professional capabilitiesare more fully utilized and he accomplishes larger and betterresults. His 'productivity' increases.29It is precisely in this way that the productivity of workers and professionalsin other fields has been increased over the years, permitting them to enlargetheir output and to earn better salaries. Consider how many fewer patientstoday's doctor could handle if he were denied a car to make his rounds, andhow much less he could do for their health if suddenly he were without hismodern instruments, laboratory services and prescriptions. The farmer, thefactory worker, the engineer, the architect, the business executive have allincreased their productivity Š and their incomes Š in the last two generationsby adopting new tools and methods, and by subdividing tasks between them-selves and their subordinates or others.This modernization process has not yet gone far in education. No-onewho has objectively observed the educational process at work, or who hasactually worked in it, can doubt for a moment that every educational systemŠ including the most 'modern' Š has abundant room for improvement ofits efficiency and productivity. Improvement, of course, is far easier calledfor than achieved. As we observed in connection with management, educationalsystems lack the institutional means and the modern analytical tools foridentifying potential improvements of this sort and then taking advantageof them. Moreover, such improvements often involve changing familiar routinesand adopting new techniques and new divisions of labour. Such changes,' Ibid.VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 77affecting many participants in the system, easily inspire resistance among manypeople who tend to see in a proposed innovation either a device for extrac-ting more work from them for the same pay, or one for making their ownjobs obsolete.This emphasizes the great importance of incentives to change.In an earlier paper30 we have outlined as an example a possible approachto a system of making the best use of a limited number of highly qualifiedand highly experienced science teachers. This is a system embracing teachers,assistant teachers, computer marking methods and mass media. We can gofurther. The replacement of the conventional classroom and teacher withdistance-teaching systems can improve the cost effectiveness of education byat least an order of magnitude. Not correspondence education, but genuineintegrated use of media in which each medium is used to best advantage topresent material best suited to it. The design of such a structure and ways inwhich it might be implemented have been discussed elsewhere31 and there ismuch experience in the Third World to draw upon. Such a system is the keyby which the potential of every child in the country could be unlocked.(ii) Change the curriculum. Around the academic core of the curriculummust be built a solid and irremovable layer of immediately applicable know-ledge and skills. Disband the Young Farmers and reform them as the Money-makers Brigade through an entrepreneurial curriculum module which is anintrinsic part of every child's education. Aspects of conservation, naturalresources, accounting, information gathering and self-instructional skills fallnaturally into this area. The rural module may look like the Young Farmer'sClub, the urban module may be concerned with paper-rounds, shoeshining,junk conversion or car washing but the essence of both will be self-employment, self-support, and self-development.Such a curriculum will still revert to academic stepping stones unless theend point is changed. De-emphasize paper certificates and replace them withreal rewards. If the successful pupil has completed a course in carpentry,give him a set of tools. If he has acquired skills in small-livestock rearing,advance him the credit to begin raising them and if he shows real promise ina particular area let him be guaranteed a place in employment.(Hi) Changing the teachers. We have shown that attempts to change thedirection of education fail if the adults involved, teachers and parents, areunconvinced of the merits of change. Re-education of the teachers, changingtheir attitudes towards the courses they teach, cannot be accomplished byministerial edicts alone. Fundamental changes in attitude can only be accom-plished by bringing teachers face to face with the problems of development.This suggests regular periods spent in other avenues of employment both30 A. W. Dock and M. J. Robson, 'National television network: An urgent solution to anurgent problem', The Zimbabwe Rhodesia Science News (1979), XIII, 173-4.31 A. W. Dock, 'Interim Report on the Application of Distance Teaching Techniques toEducational Development' (Salisbury, Univ. of Rhodesia, Faculty of Education, mimeo, 1979),summarized in The Zimbabwe Rhodesia Science News (1979), XIII, 124 - 7.78 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENTrural and urban.(iv) A greater emphasis on non-formal education. Nyerere has pointed theway to the benefits which can accrue by diverting funds from the formalsecondary to the non-formal sector. Not only can skills and knowledge begenerated in people who have been rejected by the narrow constraints of theformal system, but the driving force for radical change can gather fresh im-petus from the realization in those people that narrow academic pathwaysare not the only routes to becoming successful and respected members of acommunity.EmploymentAs in education, we can identify five forces that silhouette the crisis inemployment in developing countries:(i) the flood of job seekers released by the reduced fertility ofthe soil, the abandonment of traditional life and enlargedby a population explosion;(ii) the scarcity of resources, which are insufficient in the faceof demands for jobs in the urban sector;(iii) reduced demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers dueto the introduction of 'clever machine' technology;(iv) unsuitability of job-seekers, due to the 'diploma disease' ineducation which sets certification above skill acquisition andproduces passive employees instead of active entrepreneurs;and(v) inertia in the social system which encourages 'big company'and civil service job creation at the expense of small entre-preneurs.There are four fronts on which we can tackle the problems of providing'productive employment' for all.(i) Land. This is the most fundamental issue if we are to confront 'employ-ment' realistically. With overloaded T.T.L.s and unused commercial farmsit has been recognized that some form of land resettlement is essential. Spacedoes not permit a lengthy discussion of how land could be allocated, but itis suggested that productive commercial farms, which provide food, employ-ment and foreign exchange, should be retained; and that unused or unecono-mically used commercial farms be resettled as individual or co-operative rununits (Kenya and Ghana have shown that it is possible to maintain exportson this basis 32). Such re-settlement would only be meaningful if supportedby an adequate infrastructure, not only in the physical sense of roads andwater, but also in respect of:(a) marketing facilities,(b) credit facilities (in Mexico small landowners unite to establish credit forshared capital investment),32 R. C. Riddell, Alternatives to Poverty (Gwelo, Mambo Press, Rhodesia to Zimbabwe 1,1978).VERITY S. CUBITT, A. W. DOCK AND M. J. ROBSON 79(c) huge expansion of extension and conservation facilities, as already exis-ting in nucleus form in Devag and Conex, and(d) backed up by intensive adult literacy (women in T.T.L.s are the immediatetarget population though their urban working husbands are to be in-cluded to reorient traditional attitudes).(ii) Urban-industrial base. We need to re-orientate our thinking abouttechnical training. At present the Apprenticeship Contracts due for completion. 33197971919801017198188219827761983523are:An average of 800 per annum (without accounting for drop-outs) wouldaccount for 1 per cent of the 70,000 jobs proposed in the Five-Year Develop-ment Plan. Despite aims to increase this by 50 per cent, alternatives to thefive-year apprenticeship training will have to be found. The relevance of theapprenticeship scheme itself is debatable. A good journeyman is not necessarilya good trainer. Would it not be more appropriate for interested 'skilled'persons to undergo further training in teaching skills and man-managementfor promotion to journeyman status.Once the current Manpower Inventory Study has identified criticalshortages of specific skills, the establishment of 'skills centres' becomes apossibility. Employees would attend modular training courses: short period,intensive training and continue on the job. After a number of modules theemployee would be eligible to take a trade test and receive 'skilled' status.Facilities at the existing Government Polytechnics would initially be sufficientthus avoiding heavy investment in new training schools.For skills that are in short supply, though not critical, a 'Sunday school'training could be offered to employees on site Š the only costs here beingfull-time training staff and running costs at a factory one day per week.This offers structured training in a real-life situation.A brief reference here must be made to Management Training whichmust take into account the psychological aspects of the decision-makingprocess in the traditional, group-based African society as opposed to theindividualistic competitive nature of the Western-type economy.(Hi) Reorganization of the occupational structure requires greater flexibilityin that structure such that the distinction between technical and professionalis blurred. The trained nurse may continue to train as a doctor. The qualifiedtechnician could continue training to become an engineer. Flexibility is thekey word whereby individual talents and abilities are given opportunity todevelop to the full and to contribute to the national economy, while 'drop-outs' can be slotted into the occupational structure at their own level.33 Rhodesia, Annual Report of the Apprenticeship Training and Skilled Manpower Develop-ment Authority 1978 (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1979), 10.80 DILEMMA IN DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT(iv) Entrepreneurial skills within the 'informal sector' M should be encouragedand assisted wherever possible. By the informal sector is meant those self-employed vegetable vendors, basket makers, tin-smiths, cobblers, shoeshineboys and a myriad others who provide basic goods and services to the low-income group. In the past official policy at best has been ambivalent towardsthose self-employed, such that vendors may be ignored for some months priorto a 'raid' when those without municipal licences are harassed off the street.A reversal of the official attitude, accompanied by legislative changes, suchas easing health regulations, would open an area of productive self-employment for entrepreneurship and self-reliance.SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONFour conventional wisdoms about education and employment in developingcountries have been identified. These premises underlie much developmentplanning as has been demonstrated in the cases of Tanzania and Kenya. Ananalysis of the facts of Zimbabwe's existing educational and employmentpatterns reveals firstly the inappropriateness of those conventional wisdomsto Zimbabwe and secondly the inability of the existing structure to achievethem anyway.Radical shifts in our approach must be made if we are to avoid the con-flicts of demand versus inability to supply either school places or jobs. Somealternatives are suggested in this article to point the direction of change. It isclear that crises in education and employment are analogues in many ways.Part of the problem arises because of the lack of a model of the wholesystem which embraces both education and employment. And we reiterate:education and employment cannot be tackled as separate issues: manpowerplanning can be effective only if integrated with a supporting educationsystem. Is it not time for those planning for more education and thoseplanning for more employment to unite? We are poised for change Š can welose the opportunity to make it meaningful and productive change?34 R. Davies, Informal Sector (Gwelo, Mambo Press, Rhodesia to Zimbabwe 5, 1978).