The precolonial tenets of communalism and egalitarian team-spirit espoused in Ubuntu are arguably better preserved in rural rather than urban Africa. This idyllic and romantic view of rurality as relatively com- munitarian, natural and traditional (Tuters 2014) is contestable, but logi- cal. It is logical because in Africa modernisation and industrialisation have been associated largely with urban areas and migration to these areas which has resulted in breakdown of the traditional, extended family unit and its values of Ubuntu in urban areas. The dangers stereotypically asso- ciated with urban areas such as a violent drug culture, high crime, failing school systems and difficulties trying to ensure children are safe (Brann- Barrett 2015) have not penetrated rural areas as easily. In Zimbabwe, it is in rural areas that inclusive education for learners with disabilities had its formal, humble beginnings as special education in separate, special institutions.
Prior to colonisation in 1890, education was largely informal and based on the principles of ubuntu in Zimbabwe. Inclusivity was attained through the rites of incorporation such as those of initiation at puberty, before becoming a full person in the eyes of the community. This preco- lonial harmony that existed between diverse members of the community was disrupted by colonisation. Devlieger (1998) supports this position through his finding that specific Western societies grouping people together into a recognisable category as disabled brought colonial lan- guages that introduced the term ‘disability’ to African languages which then took their term for physical disability and generalised it to various impairments. Many impairments are unlikely to have been considered disabilities as the members could contribute economically in precolonial, agricultural society. Therefore, colonisation not only disrupted the har- mony that existed among diverse members but also ignored the benefits of communal education alongside one’s peers. Colonial disruption cre- ated dual systems of formal education.
For example, for almost a century up to independence in 1980, a dual system of education existed in colonial Zimbabwe, one for Blacks and the
other for Whites (Nziramasanga 1999). These two systems derived from the socio-political philosophy of racial discrimination which was legally and rigorously enforced. Education for Blacks was provided by Christian churches in mission schools. This scenario in general education has paral- lels in the development of education for children with disabilities who were educated in schools separate from those of non-disabled peers in Zimbabwe. Formal education of children with disabilities in Zimbabwe, which was traditionally called Special Education and is now called Special Needs Education, has had a long rural history stretching from the estab- lishment of the pioneer special schools at mission stations.
A special school for the blind was founded at the Dutch Reformed Church’s Chivi Mission in 1927 near Masvingo (at that time Fort Victoria). The manner in which this first school was founded could cast some light on the treatment of children with disabilities in the period leading up to colonisation in 1890 and beyond. Addison (1986) told the story of how, during a drought in 1915, a woman was driven away from home for her refusal to obey her husband’s orders to drown their blind child in a nearby river because the boy was viewed as a burden. She took refuge at Chivi Mission with her nine-year-old blind son, Dzingisai (lit- erally meaning ‘chase away’). Although the reverend’s wife had no exper- tise to teach the blind child Braille, she responded to her husband’s suggestion that she should teach Dzingisai by saying she would try. “I will try” became the motto of that first special school which was subsequently named after her. This story of the opening of the Margaretha Hugo spe- cial school for the blind would seem to suggest that in the not-too-distant past in Zimbabwe, conditions for children with disabilities resembled those that the international literature calls the era of extermination (Hallahan 1986; Scheer and Groce 1988). It shows that not all rural communities were uniformly informed by ubuntu in their relations with people with disabilities. It is also clear that the colonial establishment of a special school was based on Christian charity. The pattern of charity repeated itself in the subsequent establishment of the later residential special schools (Peresuh and Barcham 1998) with a special school for the deaf established at Loreto Mission in 1927 (Hlatywayo 2018) and another at Pamushana Mission in 1947 (Musengi 2014).
The Dominican Sisters (Roman Catholic) established the first special school for the deaf in 1927 at Loreto Mission in rural Kwekwe but relo- cated to the suburb of Emerald Hill in Harare in 1979 to escape the guer- rilla war of liberation. The school was renamed after the suburb of this city. The Dutch Reformed Church established the Henry Murray School for the deaf initially at Pamushana mission in rural Bikita but later it was relocated to Morgenster Mission near Masvingo urban for logistical rea- sons. Special schools were founded in mission stations, whose thrust was to alleviate poverty in the rural areas. In development discourse, rurality is synonymous with poverty (Masinire and Ndofirepi, this volume).
Similarly, disability has traditionally been associated with poverty.
According to Kabzems and Chimedza (2002), the missionaries had a charitable link that provided the school with personnel, funding and equipment that served as an alternative source of attitudes towards chil- dren with disabilities. Churches and missionary societies traded on their charitable service as services to individuals were provided in exchange for adopting Christianity (Kabzems and Chimedza 2002).
Charitable service provision was based on the perception that the indi- viduals with disabilities were deficient, poor and therefore deserving of Christian charity. Such a perception resulted in service provision within missionary institutions which focused on individuals and how to assist them overcome their shortcomings. This resulted in practices based on what has variously been called an individualistic medical, pathological or deficiency model in separate special schools at mission schools. These institutions largely ignored the assets that could be derived from the sur- rounding local cultures which they considered as pagan or heathen.
Educational service provision in mission schools filtered its under- standing of disability through the pathologic model, believing that dis- ability is a condition characterised by deficit. The condition of deafness illustrates this aptly. For example, Reagan (1995) stated that many believe that deaf people are, at least in a physiological sense, inferior to hearing people. Missionary teachers who believe this are likely to pity and patro- nise their deaf pupils whom they view as having a hearing loss or hearing impairment. They will naturally try to remediate the deficits, for example through teaching speech, speech-reading as well as using hearing aids.
These programmes are followed so that the hearing impairment does not
result in a communication disability and handicap in a largely hearing and speaking world. In addition, such teachers are more likely to believe deaf people to be socially isolated, intellectually weak, behaviourally impulsive, and emotionally immature (Lane 1999). They assume that deaf people’s behavioural deviance coupled with the communication dis- ability would result in the disadvantage of not being accorded appropri- ate social and economic roles. Such a handicap is especially possible in a society dominated by hearing and speaking. This personal tragedy approach (Oliver 2009) is characterised by perceptions of the dependence of disabled people and stereotypes which evoke pity, fear and patronising attitudes. In this approach the focus was on specialists identifying indi- vidual weaknesses and trying to treat them.
The understanding of disability as pathology migrated with the mis- sion special schools into the urban areas where the schools relocated to escape the guerrilla war of liberation and for logistical reasons. However, as a result of the global observation that separate education did not appear to be producing the desired result, there was a paradigm shift to a more social focus dealing with barriers that all learners face in school in order to improve educational outcomes. This movement from remediating individual deficits towards a social model focused on enriching learners’
environments in order to enable firstly integrated then inclusive educa- tion. The higher population densities in urban areas allowed the special schools to start serving as resource centres for the integration of learners with disabilities into neighbouring mainstream schools. Exotic specialist resources that were in the special schools were viewed as essential for facilitating the inclusive education of children with disabilities in ordi- nary schools. As a result, since such resources were more easily available in urban rather than in rural schools, the urban mainstream schools were perceived as more inclusive than rural schools. This is because rural schools were perceived as largely underresourced and therefore facing many more challenges for inclusive education than urban schools, as is discussed in the following sections.