The impact of extra lessons on the political environment: A case study of the three urban day high schools in Chegutu, Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study aimed at establishing the impact of extra lessons on the political field in Zimbabwean urban day high-density secondary schools. It was guided by the interpretivist perspective based on the interpretation of interactions and social meaning that teachers, learners, parents, and school inspectors assigned to the role of extra lessons on the political environment. The study was qualitative and thus aimed at reporting detailed views of informants. The multiple case study method was used as the focus was on three high-density high schools in Chegutu town. The researcher adopted the multi-technique approach to generate data, thus interviews and focus group discussions were used. Data saturation was arrived at after the involvement of 23 participants. These consisted of 8 teachers, 6 learners, 6 parents and 3 school inspectors. Findings from the study show that political expedience was one reason why extra lessons had been carried out with the blessing of some political players. From the academic outlook, politicians in favour of the extra lessons capitalised on them to gain continued existence in the political arena. While the political elite benefitted in the short term, through political expedience, in the long run, they stood to lose political support as this could also lead to civil disorder when many youths passed examinations but found no formal employment. Extra lessons made teachers generate extra income and created informal employment in many private colleges. This translated into low political tensions which were usually sparked by poor teacher incentives and high unemployment. Extra lessons paved the way for some meeting point among and between the different stakeholders and politicians still were guaranteed their votes regardless of whether they were for or against the extra lessons. Since there is evidence that most stakeholders were in favour of the extra lessons, it is prudent these lessons should continue to be carried out. Extra lessons also created informal employment in private colleges, and this has translated into low political tensions as teachers get some extra incentives, at the same time lowering the high unemployment of qualified teachers.

Keywords: Extra lessons, political environment, urban day high schools.

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