Growing Up and Sexual Maturation (GUSM) in Zimbabwe’s Primary Schools
GUSM Project (2002-2007) at the University of Zimbabwe
Prof. Overson Shumba, Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Technology
Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia.
Email: oshumba@yahoo.co.uk;
shumba.overson@cbu.ac.zm,
25 April 2008
Introduction
This article provides an overview of the research and outputs of the Growing Up and Sexual Maturation (GUSM)
Project (2002-2007) at the University of Zimbabwe. We researched how knowledge, beliefs and practices surrounding
GUSM militate against sustained participation, persistence, and achievement especially among girls in primary
schools and against equity, quality and relevance of education. This research process was guided and facilitated
by research questions that can be coalesced into the core question: What, by whom, and by what methodology must
information on growing up and sexual maturation be conveyed to primary school level pupils? Through a participatory
process, we obtained leads for the development of information tracts and teaching and learning resources and a
methodology for informing members of the community, policy makers, teachers, and learners about growing up and sexual
maturation and its relevance and mitigation on quality education. The resources demonstrate that many aspects of growing
up, e.g., bodily, emotional, and relational changes, and, for girls and women, menstruation and its management,
increase children’s vulnerability and require deliberate, sensitive, and systematic treatment as part of family-
and community-life and as part of the school curriculum. The Ubuntu ethical and moral framework can serve this
purpose effectively.
Conceptual framework
The design of the research was guided by these questions and a framework that makes education central to the process of
change and transforming values and beliefs. This was a necessary posture given that “sexuality” in Zimbabwe is an emotive and culturally
contested subject shrouded in taboo belief and practice. From a cultural perspective, sexual maturation and gender relationships
among boys and girls and among men and women would not be perceived as problematic, let alone in schooling and education.
Informing children about growing up and sexual maturation in the home, and more so, in the school system, requires a fundamental
shift in the attitudes of members of communities and of all of society’s institutions, the family, the community, the school,
and the education system. This requires a transformation towards a new perspective of quality that stresses equal opportunities
and secure participation and involvement in learning. Riley (1996) informs us that, “Fostering quality and equality requires an
awareness of the obstacles which individuals face in achieving their potential and of the barriers which obstruct harmonious
relationships between groups and individuals. Resolving such equality issues is a route to quality” (p. 26; italics added.
Research design and methodology
In designing the research, we pondered the question: How can equal opportunities and quality in learning be realised within the
context of an emotive and culturally sensitive and contested subject, sexual maturation? We settled for a qualitative design
in which researchers and members of communities, at different levels and at different research sites, interacted and
participated in dialogue and in sharing experiences and perspectives through conversational meetings, interviews, and focus
group discussions. The research involved a number of sites: the provincial education directorate, a primary teachers college,
and four school communities. Participants included school communities (parents, teachers, and community organisations),
education officials and policy makers, student teachers, teacher educators, and university researchers. Open days were organised
where personal testimonies about GUSM, song, dance, role play, drama, posters, and poetry provided the means for communicating
emerging findings and emerging understandings among pupils, student teachers, educators, officials, and community members.
This enabled verification of findings and at the same time facilitating interactive and reciprocal learning and co-construction
of the meaning and implications of the findings. read more