Experts and lay people are both important in nation
building and must be considered for the effective implementation of Education
5.0 where innovation is premised on heritage-based solutions.
This was said by President Mnangagwa yesterday at Chinhoyi
University of Technology (CUT) after a virtual graduation ceremony.
Speaking after a tour of the CUT Agro-Industrial Park,
Germplasm Laboratory and the Innovation Hub, the President used examples of his
early life as a lawyer, to highlight the folly of disregarding others on the
basis of their present circumstances or material lacks.
“The professor who knows the grandmother of Tshaka is
critically important in the society in the same manner as the gardener who
rears chicks, which the professor does not know how to do. If you realise that
two situations are critically important in society, then you begin to be
educated.
“In 1976, I was admitted to the bar of the High Court of
Zambia and I was attached to the Dumbutshena Law Firm. I had no car and of
course, I had already come from China and prison as a Zanla cadre.
“We used to argue with the former Chief Justice Dumbutshena
in his car as we went to the High Court. I was Zanla and he was Frolizi and
UANC; he touched my shoulder and said: ‘Young man, our argument cannot finish;
the way the world is structured is that some think and others implement. So you
are a guerrilla and you will implement. I will think and implement’.”
The President said, years later, when he was the Minister
of Justice, he went to his boss, the late former President Mugabe and said: “I
think we need black judges on the bench.”
President Mnangagwa is welcomed by Professor Arnold
Mashingaidze to the Chinhoyi University of Technology’s Innovation Hub where he
was shown a neorautanenia brachypus (Zhombe plant) — a tuberous plant being
developed into a drug. Looking on is Higher and Tertiary Education Minister
Prof Amon Murwira (second from right), CUT Vice Chancellor Prof David Simbi
(second from left) and Minister of State for Mashonaland West Province Mary
Mliswa-Chikoka (far left).
“I told him that I had Enoch Dumbutshena in mind which he
did not object to. I then called my former legal boss (Dumbutshena) to my
office then I said; ‘Mr Dumbutshena, I have discussed with the President
(Mugabe) and he is willing to appoint you judge. The idea of you being
appointed the judge comes from the practical man to the philosopher,” said
President Mnangagwa.
Justice Enoch Dumbutshena who died in 2000, was the first
black Zimbabwean Chief Justice.
The President referred to present efforts to build Zimbabwe
saying: “We collectively built consensus around our national aspirations of
modernising and industrialising our economy, towards the attainment of Vision
2030. Thus my Government declared Education 5.0 as the building block for
achieving this objective.
“Since then, we have witnessed the establishment of
innovation hubs and construction of industrial parks within the institutions of
higher learning.”
The President said the completion of the Germplasm
Laboratory, the Business Incubation Hub and the construction of the
Agro-Industrial Park demonstrated CUT’s commitment to the national development
agenda.
Higher and Tertiary Education, Science, Innovation and
Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said the President’s
vision of a heritage-based industrialised economy was aimed at achieving an
upper middle class income of at least US$3 500 per head and was possible
through Education 5.0.
Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution for
Mashonaland West Mary Mliswa-Chikoka said CUT was playing a crucial role in
human capital development.
The 16th graduation ceremony saw 2 292 graduates being
capped, although only 56 were physically present at the occasion, among them,
Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services incoming Commissioner-General Moses
Cyril Ngawaite Chihobvu, who graduated with a Master of Science degree in
Strategic Management, showing that age and rank were not an impediment to the
quest for knowledge.
Of the total, 45 percent were women, with entrepreneurship
and business sciences undergraduates dominating with 1 030 graduates.
Devoid of the usual exuberant family atmosphere because of
the restricted attendance, the occasion was however spiced up by Mechanic
Manyeruke’s celebratory song “Makorokoto” which blurred from the crystal clear
sound system.
The exhilaration that usually comes with celebrating
multitudes, especially those young at heart, was subdued by Covid-19 health
protocols, which include social distancing and compulsory wearing of face
masks.
Nonetheless, those under fortune’s wing were among
graduates and their loved ones sheltered from the vagaries of the scorching
heat by the tent pitched on a raised platform in the university’s grounds.
The ceremony was surrounded by trees coming into leaf,
among them the dominant acacia and the dry grass and red loamy soils that are
synonymous with the dry season.
Graduating under this new normal, graduates chronicled
experiences of the last six months of their degree programmes.
Some said although it was disheartening to graduate in the
absence of their colleagues, who were following proceedings virtually, they had
also faced challenges in collecting data for their dissertations because of the
Covid-19 lockdown.
Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing degree graduate, Mr
Lovemore Chikazhe, said while he finally made it to the podium, Covid-19
transformed ways of learning and research.
CUT Students Representative Council president Brendon
Machingauta said there was need to embrace the new normal.
“We have to adapt to the new normal and desist from hanging
onto the past, pertaining to graduation ceremonies at our institutions, because
of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Today marked a new era since CUT was the first Government
institution of higher learning to hold a successful virtual graduation
ceremony. However, I must say there had been mixed feelings among the graduates
as a lot of students who had to graduate virtually have been disheartened,” he
said. Herald
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