Sayikanmi Jose

THE DISAPPEARING WHITES: A HIDDEN LESSON ABOUT EDUCATION AND POWER IN ZIMBABWE

When you visit an ECD school in Zimbabwe today, it’s a beautiful sight. You’ll see tiny kids running around in colorful uniforms black and white children, same classrooms, same toys, same lunchboxes.

At that level, there is no race, only innocence.

Move up to primary school same thing. Black and white pupils still sit together, learning the same alphabet, reciting the same national pledge, and dreaming the same dreams.

Go to secondary school the mixture is still there, though the ratio begins to shift. You start noticing that the black students are more in number, but the white students still hold their own focused, quiet, and confident.

But when you finally reach university, something strange happens.
The white students disappear.

Walk through any state university campus today UZ, MSU, NUST, GZU and you’ll notice something: 99% black. The white students are gone. Vanished like morning dew.

And then, years later, when those black graduates finally enter the working world, you find a shocking reversal:
The same people they went to school with or their children are the ones now owning the companies.

The black graduate becomes the manager.
The white former classmate becomes the owner.

What happened between ECD and the Boardroom?
That’s the question.

THE SECRET LIES IN THE PATH AFTER THE CLASSROOM

Let’s be honest both races start from the same place in early childhood. But somewhere along the way, the goals and mindsets change.

When a black parent says, “My child must go to school,” what they often mean is:

“So that one day my child can get a good job.”

When a white parent says, “My child must go to school,” they often mean:

“So that one day my child can run the family business better.”

Same school. Different vision.

The black child is being prepared to survive in the system.
The white child is being prepared to own the system.

And because education in Africa is mostly designed to produce workers, not owners, it unintentionally favors those who already have something to own.

THE MISEDUCATION OF THE AFRICAN CHILD

Our education system teaches compliance, not creativity.
We are taught how to follow rules, not how to write them.
We memorize history, but we never make it.

From Grade 1 to University, we are trained to pass exams not to solve problems.
We are punished for questioning the teacher yet rewarded for copying answers perfectly.

So by the time we graduate, our biggest dream is not to innovate, but to be employed.
We want to find a job in someone else’s dream factory instead of building our own.

Meanwhile, those who left after O-Level or A-Level are being mentored in business, farming, or trade.
While the black student is perfecting academic theories, the white student is perfecting inheritance systems.

THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM

Let’s take a closer look at what’s really happening.

When white families stop at secondary level, it’s not because they hate education it’s because their education continues at home.
Their classrooms are in offices, on farms, in workshops, and in real boardrooms.

Their children start learning how to manage money, people, and systems early.
They are taught how to think, not what to think.

On the other hand, the average black parent says, “I’m struggling so that my child won’t suffer like me.”
But in doing so, they unintentionally trap that child in another kind of suffering: the corporate rat race.

We trade freedom for comfort.
We celebrate employment instead of empowerment.
We are taught to chase degrees instead of dreams.

THE RESULT

Fast forward ten years later.
The black graduate, now 30, is submitting a CV to a white-owned company.
He has more certificates, but less confidence.
He knows every theory except the one about ownership.

And the young white employer?
He may not even have a degree but he has land, a workshop, capital, and experience.
He’s been running things since he was 18.

That’s when reality sinks in:
The difference was never race it was training, timing, and mindset.

SO WHAT MUST CHANGE?

The answer is not anger it’s adjustment.
We must re-educate ourselves and our children.

Let’s teach our kids to dream beyond employment.
Let’s bring entrepreneurship, innovation, money management, and problem-solving into our homes not just classrooms.

Let’s normalize business conversations at dinner tables.
Let’s reward creativity as much as we reward academic excellence.

Because the real world doesn’t pay for how well you memorize it pays for how well you monetize.

THE LESSON OF MISEDUCATION OF AFRICA

The tragedy of African education is that it equips us to serve systems we didn’t create.
We go to school to learn how to fit in not how to stand out.
We graduate as professionals but die as dependents.

Until we shift our mindset from “I want a job” to “I want to create jobs,”
we will continue producing black graduates to work for white teenagers.

“In Africa, we study to serve; others study to own. That’s why our degrees hang on the walls of those who never finished school.”