Education development
As a former Minister of Education and Culture, Fay said she had noticed wide variations in the level of education development in different African countries.
"It is hard to describe this in one or two words, because there are big differences among all 53 African countries," she said. Among Anglophone, Francophone and Luçophone African countries, there are different educational philosophies and principles, so the only common characteristic among them is that they began to set up the modern education system in the colonial era.
According to Fay, African countries did set up many educational institutions following the mode of metropolitans, and these African colleges might stay at the level of those of Europe from the side of African students' talents as well as some studies. But the critical weakness was these educational institutions were part of colonial rule, and the focus of them were not laid according to the real situation of African countries, especially in view of the academic topics.
When Fay went to London to study in her early 20s, she was astonished to find she was quite familiar with almost all the names of streets and districts, much better than the knowledge she had to those of her own country!
"The experience was unforgettable to me," Fay noted. Maybe that also contributed to her determination to make efforts on African education, and to undo what had been culturally colonized.
Fay added that another crucial point was the legacy of colonial education for Africans. Since most of the educational institutions in Africa have a background of Christianity, many Africans have converted to Christianity while giving up their own traditional value and culture consciously or subconsciously. Of course, as Fay noted, there are some similarities between African vision of life and Christianity, which might contribute to African conversion.
"Chimurenga" is a Shauna word in Zimbabwe, which means "struggle" and "resistance," and Zimbabweans usually like to call the Liberation Movement "Chimurenga War." Recently, Fay wrote a book entitled Reliving the Second Chimurenga, Memories From Zimbabwe's Liberation Struggle, in which Shauna music has often been titled "Song of Chimulenga."

The author is a freelancer