This is part of higher and tertiary institutions’ response
to industry concerns that the higher and tertiary education sector is producing
graduates without industry requisite skills.
The new programme was revealed yesterday during a Zimpapers
Knowledge Centre organised conference dubbed Tourism and Hospitality Industry
meets Tertiary held at Holiday Inn in Bulawayo.
The conference brought under one roof players from the
tourism and hospitality sector led by the Ministry of Environment, Climate,
Tourism and Hospitality Industry and Higher and Tertiary Education Innovation,
Science and Technology Development Ministry and its various tertiary
institutions.
The players from the tourism and hospitality sector threw
the ball toward the higher and tertiary sector, highlighting the skills gap
that needed addressing.
National Manpower Advisory Council (NAMACO) chairperson and
University of Zimbabwe’s Vice Chancellor Professor Paul Mapfumo said Government
was already addressing industry concerns through implementation of Heritage
Based Education 5.0.
NAMACO is a body that advises the higher and tertiary
minister on what needs to be done to develop competent human capital to
transform the country into an upper middle-income economy.
“You were talking in yester years what has been really
bedeviling the companies. There was a response and this response was exactly to
the issues that you raised. So, help us to now take this issue forward. We are
now in a phase where we want to address them together. This is where you come
in,” said Prof Mapfumo.
“We have made it an ordinance at the University of Zimbabwe
that lecturers go on attachment. When lecturers were making noise resisting
transformation and part of that transformation was to send them on attachment.
We are not saying they are going to start being schooled again, I’m saying they
are going there to troubleshoot and also exercise their skills. I think it will
be good to send lectures at your companies.”
Normally, students in their third year of university
studies are the ones who attend industrial attachment so that they have
practical experiences of what they are learning.
He said higher and tertiary institutions have been tasked
with finding solutions to problems affecting the society.
“We want to establish critical skills for the economy. What
matches what demand. So, there should be clarity in industry on what you need.
The University of Zimbabwe has devised a phrase: ‘what do our people want.’
If our people want clean water we will
give them clean water, if they want jackets we will give them jackets. So,
industry you are our people, industry means commerce, means society,” he said.
Delivering a keynote address, Higher and Tertiary
Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor
Amon Murwira, who was represented by his deputy Raymore Machingura said the
Second Republic under President Mnangagwa reconfigured higher and tertiary
education sector for the country to modernise and industrialise in for the
country to become an upper middle income economy by 2030.
He said Government replaced Education 3.0 which only
focused on teaching, research, community engagement to Heritage Based Education
5.0 whose thrust is to produce goods and services through innovation and
industrialisation.
Deputy Minister Machingura said education produced at
higher and tertiary institutions should respond to national societal needs.
“Higher and tertiary education institutions lead in driving
the national vision by providing the necessary capabilities. National
capability is in turn fulfilled by the design and configuration of human
capital and national assets. Our goal in the higher and tertiary education
sector is to develop human capital that is fit for purpose with an ability to
transform knowledge into goods and services,” said Deputy Minister Machingura.
“Real education by nature must lead to industrialisation
and modernisation through the production of goods and services to satisfy the
needs of the people. It therefore means human needs must inform education
curricula to produce industry that satisfies human needs.”
He said the country needs to address the national skills
gap which stands at 38 percent so that they match with the country’s 90 percent
literacy levels.
Deputy Minister Machingura said new industries are being
established through the implementation of Heritage Based Education 5.0.
He said Heritage Based Education 5.0 shifts from a
master-servant colonial education system whose thrust was to preserve the
status quo without leaving room for innovation.
“Results of our successful implementation of Heritage Based
Education 5.0 provided answers to us on why there has been a disjunction
between university outputs and industry. We now know that it was a design
problem,” he said.
“It means the industry was not resulting from our education
but an education from elsewhere! Our task was then to develop an appropriate
design – Heritage Based Education 5.0, which we have already done. We changed
to Heritage Based Education 5.0 to serve the needs of our people than to
continue to use a design (Education 3.0) that was no longer consistent with the
needs of our country.”
Deputy Minister Machingura said the skills being imparted
to graduates will carry the country towards an upper middle income by 2030.
“Heritage Based Education 5.0 design aims to produce
well-rounded individuals who not only have 21st century skills required to
shape the development of our nation, but also individuals who have the correct
attitudes, individuals who know that, “Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo/ Ilizwe
lakhiwa ngabaninilo,” said Deputy Minister Machingura.
He said students are at the centre of implementing Heritage
Based Education 5.0.
Deputy Minister Machingura said higher and tertiary
institutions have established a medical oxygen factory, cough syrup, and are in
the process of establishing a factory to manufacture bitumen, all in response
to national challenges. Chronicle
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