Rurality and Curriculum Implementation in Zimbabwean Primary Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The paper argues that harnessing community epistemologies can greatly improve the implementation of the curriculum in Zimbabwean rural primary schools. The contribution of rural communities in educational discourses has been less valued and this position is being challenged given the wealth of knowledge and skills that are prevalent in rural communities. Employing the Social Capital Theory, the study empirically analyses the implications of engaging rural communities based on a qualitative descriptive survey design with a small purposefully selected sample of four rural primary schools, twenty primary school teachers, and ten community members. The study employed focus group discussion and in-depth unstructured interviews in data collection. The research findings indicated that rural teachers cannot self-provide all the educational knowledge critical for quality primary school education. They need to meaningfully engage community members in the implementation of the primary school curriculum. Furthermore, rural community members felt the primary schools did not value their contributions and, therefore, did not engage them in curriculum implementation discourses. The study concludes that there is a need to change the current teacher-community relationship practices that erode trust and voluntarism on classroom matters and create favourable win-win educational conditions. The study recommends that teachers identify specific attributes of members of the rural community and exploit them for the good of curriculum implementation at the primary school level.