TERTIARY institutions have been given the green light to recruit
students without demanding specific subjects such as Mathematics and
English as long as the programmes on offer do not require those
subjects.
This comes after the Government in 2016, issued a circular that was
addressed to the Higher Education Examination Council (Hexco) directing
that students without Mathematics should not be allowed to register for
examinations.
This resulted in a number of students failing to write their
examinations and tertiary institutions also demanding that prospective
and those who were already enrolled to write and pass O-level
Mathematics to be enrolled or continue with their studies.
In 2016, thousands of students at polytechnics in the country were
left stranded following a Government directive that all students who did
not pass Mathematics at Ordinary Level should not proceed to the next
level until they produce proof that they have passed the subject. The directive also jolted tertiary institutions who saw reduced enrolment.
However, soon after the new Government was formed in November last
year, the tertiary institutions started making submissions to their
parent ministry to review the entry qualifications as enrolment was also
going down.
In an interview, Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Professor
Amon Murwira said tertiary institutions were free to use their own
discretion to enrol without necessarily demanding entry qualifications
that are irrelevant to specific courses on offer.
He said, for example, it would not make sense for an institution to
have O- Level Mathematics as a requirement for a purely Arts programme.
Prof Murwira, was however, quick to clarify that this would be purely
an institution’s prerogative to set entry qualifications without
necessarily approaching the ministry.
Prof Murwira added, “I might have been misconstrued when I talked about entry qualifications. I never said scrap Maths. Some tertiary institutions complained that some of the entry requirements were not relevant or matching some of the courses, and enrolment numbers were plummeting. I said if you feel a particular programme like Hotel and Catering or a purely Arts programme does not require Maths, why not revise that.”
Prof Murwira said the country’s policy on higher and tertiary education was of inclusive education and urged tertiary institutions’ recruitment to recognise the diversity in talents and abilities among students.
He said the role of tertiary institutions was to develop a diverse array of professionals who will contribute meaningfully to the development of the country.
“Our policy is a policy of inclusive education, recognising that people have different talents. As a country we should have people of different specialisations. We can’t all be engineers. We need journalists, teachers and a host of other professionals.
“We don’t want to see a student who deserves to be in college roaming the streets, no. Ways should be found to ensure that such a person gets a chance to be in college,” said Prof Murwira.
He said the education sector cannot be uniform and institutions of higher and tertiary learning should exercise academic freedom.
Prof Murwira said his ministry, by allowing tertiary institutions to exercise academic freedom, trusted that the right personnel had been deployed to run the institutions.
“If the institutions had agreed on a general rule among themselves and it’s now resulting in students’ numbers falling, then it’s up to them to look at that rule again. I’ve always said, you are not cattle on a yoke. We deployed you to those institutions trusting that you are capable. We expect these people (principals) to think and advise us.
“We don’t want parrots running our institutions,” he said.
Last month Prof Murwira met academics in Bulawayo where concerns were raised over stringent entry requirements into tertiary institutions, some of which were not relevant to specific programmes, resulting in the number of students falling drastically. Sunday Mail
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