Teachers’ attitudes to and the challenges of establishing an effective and fully-fledged community of practice: the experiences of six secondary schools in the East of Zimbabwe.

Before independence, in 1980, the education system of Zimbabwe was organised along racial lines. This organisation of education along racial lines disadvantaged Black Africans in the context of both access to and quality of education experience. The transition of the Black Africans from primary to secondary school appeared to be capped for both academic and non-academic vocational secondary school programmes. Upon attaining independence, the government of Zimbabwe embarked on educational reforms and rapid expansion of the education system. These reforms aimed at establishing equitable provision of education to the disadvantaged Black Africans. Reforms focused on the millennium development goals (MDG) whose aims were to provide (primary school) education for all by 2015. The economy of Zimbabwe, which experienced growth soon after independence, declined rapidly in the late 1990s and 2000 leading to the hyperinflation of 2008. This led to adverse effects on the provision of quality education and teacher demotivation. Some teachers in this study revealed a sense of a compromised professional identity; there was also a sense of a teaching community that included many ‘accidental’ teachers. It was also possible to detect many teachers having a sense of a lack of control; discontentment was high among the teacher respondents. There was also a reluctance to understand the need for accountability and commitment by a significant number of the teacher respondents.