He is a Zimbabwean politician, historian, educationist, and traditional leader. He served as the Minister of Education, Sports, & Culture since August 2001, and was appointed as the Resident Minister and Governor of Mashonaland East Province.
Background
Aeneas Soko Chigwedere was born in Hwedza district, Zimbabwe. His father was a teacher and had worked as a foreman at a commercial farm, and his mother was a communal farmer. His grandfather was the Chief of the area representing one of the senior houses of the Svosve dynasty.
Education
As the first black student to be admitted to study for the History Honors program, from which he graduated in 1964, he strongly felt that he had a duty to work in producing an authentic history of Zimbabwe. He embarked on studying Chimurenga, the 1896-97 anticolonial war, in 1966 towards an MPhil degree.
Career
Chigwedere joined the Ministry of Education as a high school teacher in 1965 and completed his graduate certificate in education in 1975. He taught briefly at Fletcher and Highfield, but spent most of his teaching career at Goromonzi High School where he rose to become the first black headmaster and principal from 1977 to 1986.
Chigwedere was one of the founding members of the National Association of Secondary School Headmasters, served as the first Regional Chair for all Mashonaland and then National Chair up to 1986, and was elected a life member.
Chigwedere served as Deputy and then Regional Director of Education in the Ministry of Education, and retired early to pursue politics.
Politics
He was against white minority rule in Zimbabwe.Ideology: african socialism,social democracy,black nationalizm.