HARARE Polytechnic College yesterday staged a successful
2019 graduation ceremony despite the rest of the city being in chaos, as police
fought running battles with demonstrators in a brutal clampdown of protests
organised by the opposition MDC party.
Officiating at the graduation ceremony, Higher and Tertiary
Education minister Amon Murwira said it was high time the nation focused on
perfecting skills and not theory at the country’s institutions of higher
learning, as has been the case.
“Our national skills audit from December 2017 to April 2018
showed that although the national literacy rate is 94%, the national skills
levels are at 38%. This is a result of the trajectory literacy development that
we followed for 38 years,” he said.
“We have to admit that we have focused too much on
university degrees. While university degrees are vital, especially when done
well, the problem with the current format, university degrees, particularly the
more spectacular ones, is that people who possess them often fall into the trap
of thinking people who don’t have them don’t know anything.”
He bemoaned the fact that since independence in 1980, the
country has been trapped in an archaic education system which deposed former
President Robert Mugabe
placed much emphasis on.
“This has been our trap as Zimbabwe and we now want to jump
out of this trap,” Murwira said.
He said the country’s polytechnics would evolve into
centres of innovation and excellence in order to be relevant to the State’s
industrialisation and
modernisation agenda.
Harare Polytechnic principal Tafadzwa Mundondo said his
institution was in the process of redeeming the rigor mortised education system
through embracing the
new education philosophy being adopted by the country,
Education 5.0, which focuses on innovation and industrialisation.
“As Harare Polytechnic, we are reconfiguring and recoding
our systems to fully harness and embrace the heritage based educational
philosophy,” he said.
A total of 3 048 graduated at the ceremony, with 1 484
females in comparison to 1 564 males, proving a positive move on gender parity.
Newsday
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