Marijke Overeen and Dian van Unen

The Bicycle in Zimbabwe

Homepage Manual Contents Navigation

Bicycle technicue and Education with Production

In this section:
Bicycle technique a usefull skill / Aims of Education with Production / Production / Bicycle technique in Education with Production / Tasks of a bicycle workshop

Bicycle technique a usefull skill

Why is the trade of repairing and reassembling of bicycles not a recognised skill in Zimbabwe? Why doesn't the bicycle business florish? For the writers of this report, with their background of Holland as a cycling country, the question could be answered by comparing facts of Holland and Zimbabwe:

In Holland there are about 11 million bicycles, to a population of 14 million. The average price of a bicycle is 175 dollar, the minimum wage being about 400 dollar. The demand is 60 bikes to every 1000 inhabitants, resulting in sales of more than a million a year. 4700 specialized shoDs with qualified personell all over the country take care of the repairs and maintenance of this mode of transport.

It must be clear that with a minimum wage of 105 dollar per month (and many people earning no cash at all) and a price of 200 dollars for a bike, bicycle can never be as popular as in a country like Holland.

The prices on the market are a result of the dominant economical conditions both within Zimbabwe, and in the world trade relations. These are major factors that decide the use of bicycles and the opportunities of bicycle repair as an economic activity.

We are convinced all the same, that more and better training of bicycle technique can help people to make better use of their bicycles. It could make a person, a family, a cooperative, a community independent of distant facilities.

More knowledge about the skill, experience with spare-parts and available tools and knowledge about quality should be connected with an attitude of selfreliance. Eventually this could evolve into political pressure to change the conditions of production to serve the interest of the people. It is probably hard to make a living by bicycle repairing and -reassembling in Zimbabwean conditions, so the training in this skill should preferably be part of wider technical training.

As will be explained in the Education paragraph, metalwork gives a basic background for bicycletechnique.

Cooperative and community organisations told us that bicycle-technique could be a usefull part of a training programme for members of cooperatives and rural communities.

A course in bicycle-technique could be in the same line as existing technical courses for members of cooperatives: 6 month courses for motormechanics at Cold Comfort and for metalwork at St. Peters Kubatana (Harare). (10)

Bicycle technique may considered as one of the skills essential for life in selfreliant rural communities and cooperatives.

Aims of Education with Production

Zimbabwe inherited a colonial society, which was also reflected in the schoolsystem. This is an elitist system, with academic bias and no relation with the needs of the majority of the peoole and the practical capabilities of the students. Technical education produced mainly 'spannerboys', with "just enouch abilities to assist the real mechanics and to execute simple precooked acts." (11)

During the liberation struggle the refugee-schools in Mozambigue and Zambia challenged the colonial system, combining theory and practice, mental and manual skills. This resulted in eight experimental schools for Education with Production in independent Zimbabwe, assisted by ZIMFEP: the Zimbabwean Foundation for Education with Production.

ZIMFEP objectives

ASSISTING these pilot schools is one of the principle tasks of ZIMFEP, and one of the main ways in which we are implementing our objectives.

  1. To promote a new and revolutionary system of education which combines technical training agricultural production and academic studies;
  2. To enable our youth to be self-employed when they finish their schooling, thus reducing the unemployment problem and creating a self-reliant people;
  3. To raise the technological and living standards of the masses by relating education to real life problems and by linking the schools with the local community;
  4. To create new job opportunities by establishing co-operative farms and industries and by strengthening already existing co-operatives through the provision of training for co-operative personnel;
  5. To carry out research and publish materials that will continue the struggle for mental decolonisation and will promote a democratic socialist society.
  6. To link the schools with the local community so that they will not be islands divorced from the needs of Ihe rural population

"For the true revolutionary, mental work is inseparable from manual work and the division of mental workers from manual workers can only be part of mental colonisation. It is part of the colonial inculculation that the existing class structure is to be accepted and can never change."

Teacher Training Lectures,
"Educating Teachers for the Zimbabwean Revolution",
May, 1979

In the old system many students who fail to get their O-levels, are left unskilled, without a certificate, wlthout a chance to get a job, unable to be selfemployed and contribute to the development of their community.

ZIMFEP realises that it's not only a question to eradicate the unwished by-products of this sytem (being the failers) but to change the system alltogether, into Education with Production.

Production

What is the state of affairs in production within the ZIMFEP-schools?

The answer varies as ideas about it differ. Some stress the point that production should make the schoolcommunity selfreliant, directed at the immediate needs of the school: windowframes and iron beds. Others say production should first of all enable schoolleavers to find or create work and the immediate needs of the school are only part of the production.

One of the options for the production-side of the ZIHFEP- schools is, to create workshops in the schoolarea for schoolleavers to specialise in one of the pratical subjects. These productive units for schoolleavers are ment to be cooperatives. They could be income generating for these schoolleavers, provide them with employment. They might be the launching-pad for other such workshops/cooperatives in the local communities of the students.

A research to determine what productive subject is appropriate for a given school will be carried out by ZIMFEP.

At this moment all the schools have farming as one of their productive subjects. Wood- and metalworkshops exist in some of the schools or are under construction, to be completed ln 1984.

The Minister of Education has stated at diffrent occasions that, as the schools are pilot-schools, examples for changing the whole school system, they should have extra facilities, staff and possibilities for experiments.

The ZIMFEP-schools seek to change the content of the practical subjects as required up to now by Cambridge schoolcertificate program. At the same time they keep the educational level of the Cambridge-schoolcertificate. This will be difficult since the number of students per class is set at 20, while 12 is a reasonable number for a practlcal teacher.

There is no teacher's training college yet that is specializing in Education with Production. Belvedere Teachers College in Harare recently started training teachers in the practical subjects. ZIMFEP established contacts with this college.

Bicycle technique in Education with Production

Bicycle technique can be seen as a specialisation of metalwork. At the same time the skills involved in the bicycle technique find use also in fields outside the bicycle trade.

Different basic skills of metal work are used in bicycle-technique: measuring, correct use of basic tools, operation of bearrings, filing, drilling, thread cutting and brazing. Workshop-rules for safety and order are involved.

Bicycle-repairing and (re)assembling demands that one knows:

  • the operation and assembling of different hubs
  • spoking, aligning and trueing of a wheel
  • operation and assembling of rimbrakes
  • different bearring systems
  • knowledge of bicycle frame
  • operation of the air pump
  • operation of the electricity system.

The theory of bicycle technigue involves different basic principles of physics, as we mention friction, gearratio and geardrive, electricity and knowledge of materials.

Tasks of a bicycle workshop

We propose a bicycle workshop on one of the ZIMFEP-schools. This workshop should have three aims:

  1. Repairing and reassembling of bicycles. The workshop offers bicycle repair services to people in the surroundings and the population of the school itself.
  2. Training facilities. The workshop offers training courses in bicycle maintenance, repairing and assembling both to groups of students and members of cooperatives.
  3. The possible manufacturing of bicycle-trailers. The workshop could start the small-scale manufacturing of trailers and wheelchairs. It is possible that this is the start of a cooperative workshop for schoolleavers.
Next page

Mail to: Barbara Gruehl Kipke (barbara@mobility-consultant.com)
or to the Webmaster (webmaster@mobility-consultant.com).
Back to the top