Zimbabwe - education
Zimbabwe Education, Before independence in 1980, the education system was
separate for blacks and whites. The following 20 years brought great strides in
education; thus, primary school became accessible to all and student
participation nearly doubled. From 1991, there has been a social graduation
payment for schooling. Parallel to the public school system are many private
schools. The illiteracy rate for the adult population is 14.9% (1995).
The school system includes a seven-year compulsory elementary school, which
is followed by a British-style superstructure, divided into a four-year and a
six-year branch ending with respectively. O-level and A-level (see UK
(education)). Teaching takes place mainly in English, in primary school, but
also in the local languages shona and ndebele.
Higher education takes place at the country's two universities
in Harare and Bulawayo as well as at other colleges.
OFFICIAL NAME: Zimbabwe
CAPITAL CITY: Harare
POPULATION: 13,770,000 (Source: COUNTRYaah)
AREA: 390,759 km²
OFFICIAL/OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: English, approximately 20 bantu languages, including shona and ndebele
RELIGION: natives religions 41%, Protestants 24%, Catholics 7%, other Christians 14%,
others (including Muslims) 14%
CURRENCY: Zimbabwe dollar
CURRENCY CODE: ZWD
ENGLISH NAME: Zimbabwe
INDEPENDENCE: 1980
POPULATION COMPOSITION: shona 71%, ndebele 16%, white 1%, other 12%
GDP PER CAPITA INH.: $ 1031 (2014)
LIFE EXPECTANCY: men 55.5 years, women 56 years (2014)
LIVING CONDITIONS INDEX, HDI: 0492
LIVING CONDITIONS INDEX, POSITION: 156
INTERNET DOMAIN NAME: .zw
According to DIGOPAUL, Zimbabwe, (ndebele 'the great stone house', after the name of a ruin village
in the south of the country), a republic in southern Africa, a British colony
under the name of Southern Rhodesia until 1965, when a white minority declared
the country independent under the name of Rhodesia. Only in 1980 was Zimbabwe
recognized as an independent state. The country has a good infrastructure and
one of the most versatile economies in Africa. Mineral wealth, a good climate
and good agricultural land attracted many Europeans. A civil war needed to take
place before the country could become independent. the land distribution from
colonial times caused political turmoil. President Robert Mugabe's increasingly
repressive regime has isolated Zimbabwe and brought the country into deep
economic crisis.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Find two-letter abbreviation for each
independent country and territory, such as ZW which stands for Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe - language
Zimbabwe language, Of the country's 19 bantu languages, the most widespread shona and ndebele are
spoken by respectively. approximately 10.7 million (2000) and 1.6 million. (2001). Other
major bantu languages are those with shona closely related to manyika (about
860,000), kalanga (about 700,000, 2001) as well as ndau (about 800,000,
2000) and nyanja (about 250,000). The official language
is English which is also the mother tongue of the majority of the country's
white population.
Zimbabwe - Constitution
Zimbabwe Constitution, The Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe is from
1980 with later amendments. The legislative power lies with a one-chamber
parliament; it has 150 members, 120 of whom are elected for five years in
general elections in single-person constituencies, 12 are elected by the
president, 10 are elected by and from the tribal chiefs of Zimbabwe, and the
remaining 8 are provincial governors. The executive has the president elected by
parliament for a six-year term; the prime minister and other members of
government are also appointed by parliament.
Zimbabwe - economy
Zimbabwe - Economy, Zimbabwe is rich in natural resources, agricultural land,
minerals and hydropower and has long been one of the most developed economies in
Africa, albeit with a very unequal distribution of income and wealth. Many years
of disastrous politics, however, have thrown the country into one of Africa's
worst and most protracted crises. After independence in 1980, Prime
Minister Mugabe introduced a socialist oriented economic policy,
which prioritized education, health and defense, but resulted in large
government deficits. While growth was high in the first years after
independence, rising economic problems through the 1980's following the fall of
socialism in the Soviet Union led to a reorientation of economic policy: with
support from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and World Bank started
Zimbabwe in 1990 a market economy reform program, ESAP.
Economic growth in the first half of the 1990's was modest; agriculture was
hit hard by drought, while the liberalization of foreign trade led to large
trade and current account deficits and frequent devaluations of the currency,
the Zimbabwe dollar. Due. problems in meeting the requirements for
government savings and privatizations of state-owned enterprises, the IMF
stopped its payments to Zimbabwe in 1995, further impairing the country's
ability to raise capital in the international loan markets. The IMF's support
was only resumed in 1998, when the government implemented a new phase in ESAP,
called Zimprest, whose objective was to reverse economic development through
significant investment in the export sector.
However, it was going to go differently. A growing and costly commitment to
regional armed conflicts, including in Congo Kinshasa, along with uncertain
political conditions have kept foreign investors away. The government's
dictatorial attitude towards the opposition and participation in veterans'
occupation of "white" agriculture has partly caused sanctions from the EU and
the US. The IMF and the World Bank, in part, resulted in a severe decline in
agricultural production. The industrial sector has also been affected. because
there has been no currency for energy imports. A majority of the population is
now living a life dominated by poverty, unemployment and one of Africa's
worst HIV/AIDS epidemics. In addition, according to the UN, 700,000
residentsin 2005, became homeless after a so-called cleanup in Harare's slums. A
state of hyperinflation (1205% as of August 2006) has occurred and sought to be
countered by a devaluation of 60% and a currency reform that removed three zeros
of the face value. Long-term budget deficits have brought public debt above one
year's GDP (2005), and the external balance sheet deficit in the same year
amounts to a total external debt of more than 19 months of GDP.
Zimbabwe's most important trading partner is South Africa, which in 2005
accounted for approximately 40% of foreign trade. Denmark's exports to Zimbabwe in
2005 totaled DKK 20 million. while imports were DKK 30 million. In 2002, Denmark
ceased program cooperation with Zimbabwe, citing the political situation in the
country.
Zimbabwe - social conditions
Zimbabwe - social conditions, Poverty was far less extreme in Zimbabwe than
in neighboring countries, and the country had achieved great health and
educational progress since independence. Progress has been under control through
the last years economic and political crisis. Poverty has grown tremendously and
the health and education sectors are characterized by a real collapse. Problems
due to lack of public resources, fewer international donors and high inflation
in these sectors are dramatically increased as staff flees. In 2005, it was
estimated that at least half a million professionals, primarily teachers and
health workers, had left the country.
At the end of 2003, it was estimated that around a quarter of the population
was infected with HIV/AIDS. It is the highest level next to Botswana. HIV/
AIDS is the main reason why life expectancy has dropped to just over 37
years. It is believed that 8-900,000 children have lost at least one of their
parents due to HIV/AIDS. The United Nations Agricultural Organization (FAO)
estimates that agriculture has lost more than 10% of its workforce due to
AIDS. Drought has increased the problems and has at times led to millions of
people being dependent on relief.
Zimbabwe - Health conditions
Zimbabwe - Health conditions, Infant mortality is approximately 60 ‰, which is
below the average for sub-Saharan African countries. Mortality under 5 years is
approximately 75 ‰. The birth rate is relatively high, approximately 30 ‰. The average
lifetime is only 39 years. Malnutrition is a major problem among children in
Zimbabwe. The most common causes of death
are measles, malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia, but other tropical diseases are
also common. A quarter of the adult population between the ages of 15 and 49 is
estimated to be infected with HIV.
As in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the healthcare system previously
consisted of only a few hospitals in the larger cities as well as scattered
mission stations. After independence, it has been tried with varying degrees of
success to create a modern rural health system.
Zimbabwe - mass media
Zimbabwe - mass media, Zimbabwe has had a tradition of relatively free media,
but it is now history. Where most other African countries have been given
increased freedom of the press, things have gone the opposite way in
Zimbabwe. The radio, television and dominant newspapers are all controlled by
the government and what is left by private media is under severe pressure. The
independent and critical newspaper Daily News has been banned from publication
and a lawsuit is being held between the newspaper and the government.
The press laws are very restrictive and make it almost impossible for
journalists and the media to work. All journalists must be registered and
failure to register can result in incarceration. The state-owned Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is the only broadcasting station from Zimbabwe,
but exile Zimbabweans broadcast radio to Zimbabwe from London, Washington and
Madagscar. Up until the election in 2005, the signal from one of the stations
was generated by a stationary noise emitter.
An independent weekly magazine, "The Zimbabwean", is also being produced in
London. It is sought to be distributed in Zimbabwe as an international
publication and is also aimed at Zimbabweans outside Zimbabwe. See also Africa
(mass media).
Zimbabwe - art
Zimbabwe - art, Zimbabwe has a rich tradition of rock painting like South
Africa and Namibia, but also for a distinctive architecture with monumental
buildings, conical towers, temples, palaces, city walls etc. seen in Great
Zimbabwe, the center of the Shona kingdom near the present Masvingo. In the
ruins, eight have been found. 1 m high frame-like soapstone sculptures of
bird-like creatures with stylized eagle heads and human bodies. The Shonas have
a tradition of carving elegant headrests into tight geometric shapes. Since
approximately In 1970, they resumed work on soapstone in a more modern design
language, and their sculptures are displayed in art galleries in Paris, London
and New York.
Zimbabwe - literature
Zimbabwe - literature, Zimbabwean literature has its prehistory in
colonial Rhodesia, home to a high profile white settler literature from novels
such as Gertrude Pages (1872-1922) Love in the Wilderness (1907)
to Wilbur Smith- inspired war melodrama in e.g. John Gordon Davis' (1936-2014) Hold
My Hand I'm Dying (1967), but also originated from a masterpiece such
as Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing (1950, The Grass Sing,
1952).
A black African writing literature emerged in the 1950's with encouragement
from the colonial Rhodesia Literature Bureau and emphasis on local language
texts, on Shona moral teachings by Patrick Chakaipa (1932-2003) and Paul
Chidyausika (b. 1927), on Ndebele's excellent dramatic seminal portrayals of
Ndabezinhle Sigogo (1932-2006). Nationalist themes emerged in English-language
African novels of the 1960's such as Stanlake Samkanges's (1922-88) On Trial
for My Country (1966).
In the 1970's, a number of works that became patterned for Zimbabwe literature
after independence in 1980: Charles Mungoshi's Waiting for the Rain (1975), Dambudzo
Marecheras The House of Hunger (1978) and Stanley Nyamfukudza's The
Non-Believer's Journey (1980).
While Charles Mungoshi developed a quiet but intense psychological social
realism with underplayed political power, the exiled Dambudzo Marechera embraced
expressionist violence, and the equally fugitive Stanley Nyamfukudza focused on
the horrors of war and politics, on villagers caught in crossfire between
government terrorism and guerrilla terror.
Following Rhodesia's transformation into Zimbabwe, writings on Shona and
Ndebele continue to enjoy wide and wide popularity. Also on the shona, Charles
Mungoshi is a leading author, while Ndabezinhle Sigogo, as the grand old man of
Ndebele literature, has been accompanied by effective successors such as the
novelist and playwright Cont Mdladla Mhlanga, whose theater group Amakhosi from
the mid-1980's has thoroughly laughed with Robert Mugabe's controlled corruption
and abuse of power.
In English, a number of new authors have come into existence since the
mid-1980's. The poet Chenjerai Hove writes short, poetically condensed novels
that seek to imitate the idiomatics of the Shona language (Bones,
1988), and Tsitsi Dangarembga has very successfully written a feminist
education novel (Nervous Conditions, 1988, Nervous Conditions,
1992).
In Harvest of Thorns (1989), Shimmer Chinodya links the big and the
small in a panoramic historical and critical novel about the War of Independence
and the creation of Zimbabwe. In the 1990's, Yvonne Vera received critical
acclaim for his attempts at a condensed, effective short prose, in which both
characters in the text and its narrator were allowed to dream, associate and
fabulate, for example Without a Name (1994, da without name,
1996) and Butterfly Burning (1998). Since the 1980's, the annual
Zimbabwe Book Fair in Harare has been an important playground for critical
public.
Zimbabwe - music
Zimbabwe - music, Zimbabwe's traditional music has for a time been dominated
by the mbira instrument originally used at a religious ceremony, bira,
but in the context of the so-called 2nd Chimurenga war with white
minority rule in the 1970's, it became traditional music a symbol of the black
culture. The old songs and their special intonation have at the same time been
transferred to marimbas and modern electric guitar bands, but the old features
of the musical structure are still audible. Among the leading musicians is
Thomas Mapfumo. Also, reggae stands strong in modern music life.
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