This study is a contribution to the growing literature on the subject of the role of education in national reconstruction and reconciliation in countries that have experienced conflict and severe dislocation. It takes as its focus the case of Zimbabwe during the period 1980-2010 but related to experiences of conflict in countries such as Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, the Sudan and Rwanda in Africa and, elsewhere, in Bosnia, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Northern Ireland