(HERALD) Zimbabweans’ skills cause of mobility

Zimbabweans’ skills cause of mobility

WE can only say the cat is out of the bag. For those who did not know, Zimbabwe has the highest overall literacy rate in southern Africa, a whopping 90 percent, and also the highest literacy rate in the school-going age group in Africa at 98 percent.

Statistics released by Unesco on the occasion of the International Literacy Day this week showed that close to 98 percent of young Zimbabweans are literate compared to a regional average of 69,4 percent while the adult literacy rate is 89,4 percent, way ahead of the regional average of 59,2 percent. This development prompted a US university, the University of Maryland to honour Zimbabwe for excellence in education at the Second African Awards in January this year, a celebration of the investments made by the Government in the education sector. While Zimbabwe’s human resource development is unparalleled in Africa, the converse obtains in most countries where literacy remains an elusive target with 60 percent of adults unable to read or write. In fact, the global scenario is even sadder as 800 million people are reported to be functional illiterates; that is, they can neither read, write nor count.

Zimbabwe’s impressive record does not only testify to the huge investments made by the Government in the education sector, a fact that trashes claims by detractors who say the country has nothing to show for 27 years of independence, but they also put into perspective the high mobility of Zimbabweans.

While the brain drain and emigration witnessed in Zimbabwe since the turn of the millennium is not unique to the country, detractors sought to explain it in conflict terms claiming the emigrants were escaping penury and Government repression.

Yet such sojourns are common all over Africa since the days of WENELA in apartheid South Africa, which is why Sadc is currently working on a protocol on free movement.

While we accept that our country is undergoing its worst socio-economic slump since independence, we would want detractors to acknowledge that the challenges are not of our own making, and the reason Zimbabwe has not collapsed is because the Government built a strong foundation predicated on social services.

While there may be some Zimbabweans who illegally cross into South Africa, it is a fact that most of those who do so are unskilled, mostly uneducated nationals who would have failed to make it here.

They jump the borders to do menial jobs on South African farms the same way Zambians and Malawians used to do in Zimbabwe, the same way immigrants from Eastern Europe flood Western cities.

Zimbabwe’s untold story involves a much larger number of citizens who cross into South Africa legitimately as cross-border traders, sell their wares and come back while an even bigger number are lured from their jobs as their skills are in great demand.

These are the professionals who are contributing a lot to the development of their host and home countries.

The point is Zimbabweans move simply because they are not only highly literate but also very skilled in many disciplines which is why their services are sought after even in the so-called post-modern continents of Europe and North America.

Let that fact sink into the skulls of those who claim the converse.