It's 1980 and Steve Winter, a lecturer back in London, has been sent on a fact-finding mission by the Ministry of Education to a People's Republic in Eastern Africa. In exchange for his month's stay at a local Teacher Training College he has brought with him the latest in audio-visual technology to show the staff and students. Although the College is known for its progressive values, Steve nevertheless finds himself at odds with the senior management over the profitability of the school's shambas (fields used to grow crops), which are tended by the students themselves without proper remuneration.