Colleges and universities have been advised not to raise
tuition fees as employers have not increased salaries while indications are
that the US$20 million student loan facility being initiated by Government is
almost operational.
In an interview after the launch of state-of-the-art
Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) infrastructure donated by
UNESCO and Republic of Korea at Masvingo Teachers’ College last Friday, Higher
and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor
Amon Murwira said increasing fees in colleges and universities should
correspond with an increase in salaries by employers.
He said Government was still committed to addressing
students’ plight on fees payment and had already injected US$10 million into
banks towards student loans.
“As a ministry, we are conscious of the Government’s
austerity measures and we would not randomly increase fees in colleges and
universities. We do not want to be part of the problem of fuelling inflation
through arbitrary fee hikes,” said Prof Murwira.
“Local banks have agreed on a scheme with the Ministry of
Finance and Economic Development. The scheme has seen the Ministry injecting
US$10 million, as educational loans and it is almost operational. The money has
been deposited with banks and it is expected to increase to US$20 million,” he
said.
He said the loan facility was flexible and students would
be given more time to make repayments.
“The payback time is flexible depending on the capacity of
the students plus this will be a revolving fund. So it is when these loans are
operational that we can talk of raising fees,” he said.
Turning to the ICT infrastructure, Prof Murwira said, the
target was to have free Wi-Fi for students in all 13 State universities and
colleges by August 30, this year.
“We have also received US$6 million for industrial parks
and innovation hubs with the construction of the infrastructure at advanced
stages, in most universities. We look forward to having free Internet services
for students in State universities in the next two months.”
The event saw the commissioning of 40, state-of-the-art
desktops and 16 spot-throw projectors which have already been installed and are
being used for research, learning and teaching.
The ICT programme is part of the 5.0 education design which
has a bias towards innovation and industrialisation, thorough technological
advancement.
The 5.0 design consists of teaching, research, community
outreach, innovation and industrialisation.
This is a shift from the colonial set up which only
concentrated on the first three. Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment