adminLeonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
THE first group of 10 local students has left the country for China to receive Information Communication Technology (ICT) training.
This follows an agreement signed by Zimbabwe and China during President Robert Mugabe’s visit to the Asian country in August last year.
The students left the country last week for a two-week pilot training in ICT.
During the training, the students will interact with Chinese engineers.
China’s mobile communications giant, Huawei, is sponsoring the training programme which is called Seeds for the Future. After the pilot training, several groups of 10 students from Zimbabwe’s State universities will be sent to China for the ICT training.
Officially launching the programme in Victoria Falls recently, ICT, Postal and Courier Services Minister Supa Mandiwanzira thanked the Chinese government for the support it was rendering to Zimbabwe.
“I want to thank the government of China for sponsoring this project and many others which include the $1 million loan facility given to NetOne.
“This will boost our technical skills as well as enhance growth of our industry. We want to also thank President Mugabe for his visit to China where he clinched these deals which are now bearing fruit,” he said.
The training programme seeks to enhance the Infrastructure and Utilities cluster, one of the four pillars of Zim-Asset.
The cluster spells out a number of major projects to revive the economy by rehabilitating, upgrading and building key physical as well as social infrastructure and utilities to enable the turnaround of the economy and create business and employment opportunities.
Speaking at the same occasion, Huawei managing director for Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, Spawn Wen, said the project was a skills transfer and empowerment programme.
“The launch is in fulfilment of our commitment to President Mugabe when we sponsored the programme during his visit to China last year.
“We’re working closely with the Ministry of ICT and that of Higher and Tertiary Education,” he said.
Wen said the idea was to make the programme continuous but they would monitor the outcome of the pilot visit for a way forward. Wen said the Seeds for Future is a global programme where the company seeks to cultivate technology and grow the ICT industry.
In China, the students under the training programme will witness live demonstrations of the latest ICT technologies, attend workshops where they will meet experts and get attached to Huawei’s different departments for hands-on training.
Wen said China and Zimbabwe have a longstanding relationship politically and economically which is why Huawei has enjoyed 10 years of operation in Zimbabwe.
Online Reporter