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Michael Magoronga  Midlands Correspondent
Kwekwe High School history teacher Manners Musongelwa scored a first for the country when he was elected president of the Association of History Teachers and Lecturers in Africa (AHTLA) at its convention in Dodoma, Tanzania recently.

Musongelwa, who is also the History Teachers Association of Zimbabwe president, was unanimously elected to chair the African body following his presentation at the convention which ran from November 7 to 9 at Dodoma University.

His achievement re-asserts the fact that Zimbabwe is one of the leading nations in education in Africa.

In an interview, Musongelwa said the election came as a surprise to him.

“When I prepared my speech, I just thought it was a simple one, but I was shocked by the plaudits I got from colleagues after I read it,” he said. “They said my speech was the best and I was the best person to lead them and I was elected unopposed.”

Mr Musongelwa said his objective was to recognise the teaching of History in Africa.

“As you know, most of our African countries were colonised by western countries and much of the history syllabus in Africa is made up of European History,” he said.

“That should be a thing of the past, we need to learn more about our African history and history makers.”

Mr Musongelwa said there was need to integrate information communication technology into history teaching.

“The teaching of History across the continent should be uniform and we should make full use of the ICT aspect,” he said. “During our next conference in Addis Ababa in May next year, I will emphasize on the need to integrate ICT components that are always lying idle,” he said.

Mr Musongelwa, in partnership with Learning Factory Company, introduced the history teaching box, which replaced textbooks.

“We introduced the teaching box, which can easily replace textbooks and makes it easy for those in the rural areas who have no access to learning and teaching material to read and pass,” he said. “That is the technology we are talking about.”