daniel chigunwe
Nokuthula G Moyo-Muparuri
The previous article about start-up communities for the cultural and creative industries discussed the need to evaluate the current state of Zimbabwe’s cultural and creative industries with a view to harmonise all their activities and institutionalise the preservation of the country’s cultural and creative heritage.
This article is about building Zimbabwe knowledge and innovation start-up communities for the education sector.
The article will discuss the following:
The importance of innovation in education; developing an innovation strategy for education and training; innovation in education theme; developing skills for innovation theme; developing policy issues for education and training; value chain analysis of the education industry; and developing start-up community partnerships for the education sector.
The importance of innovation and innovation in education
Innovation is a driver of growth and well-being in the economy and society. In education, innovation has also become an imperative issue to bring about qualitative changes alongside the expansion of education systems.
Innovation should lead to more efficiency and improved outcomes in quality and equity of learning opportunities. To reap the gains of innovation, education and training policies have to empower people to both innovate and adapt to innovations.
In this endeavour, there is a need to share knowledge and experiences on the design and implementation of effective and evidence-based policies to encourage, facilitate and measure innovation in education.
The need for innovation in education is justified by many factors.
Education needs to address new societal challenges in the best possible way and promote higher quality standards. Globalisation demands new skills and competences and along with increasing competition among education institutions. Education policies are expected to promote education as a tool to increase employability and improve employment opportunities for all. Finally innovation in education is also needed from an economic point of view to increase efficiency, productivity and quality.
Developing an innovation strategy for education and training
There is need to develop an innovation strategy for innovation and training for the country. The strategy should focus on how different forms of innovation can be fostered and measured in the country’s education sector. The strategy should also outline how to develop the set of skills that are needed for innovative societies in Zimbabwe.
The strategy should articulate how these issues would be tackled in primary and secondary schools and also in higher and tertiary education institutions. The organisation for economic cooperation and development developed an innovation strategy for education and training, which explores new approaches to support radical and incremental innovation and continuous improvement in education systems, and equips people with the skills required for innovation.
This innovation strategy has developed two main and complementary themes of work: the theme for innovation in education explores how different forms of innovation can be fostered and measured in the education sector and how they can bring improved outcomes.
The theme for developing skills for innovation, explores the set of skills that are needed in innovative societies, and how they can be developed in education. It notably focuses on how to teach, learn and assess students’ creativity and critical thinking. The project has produced a number of reports, articles and conferences to inform policy makers on these topics.
Innovation in education theme
The theme for innovation in education explores the role and interaction of multiple levers of innovation policy in the education sector and how they can be governed to become more effective.
It examines a range of innovation policy instruments to identify how countries do or could promote an innovation ecosystem that accommodates incremental and radical experimentation and facilitates self-sustained improvement.
The innovation policy instruments can focus on five areas which are system organisation, technology, school organisation, educational research and development and measuring innovation in education.
On system organisation, regulatory frameworks can be used to provide incentives and opportunities for innovation in the education system.
Questions to ask when developing the framework are as follows; does the rate of innovation increase when educators are spurred on by competitive incentives? How much room for innovation leaves central and school-based approaches to curriculum decision making?
On technology, a systemic and evidence-informed approach is needed for technology-based innovations in education. Questions to ask are; How do we enhance teaching and learning with technology? How could longitudinal information systems lead to a more efficient use of the “big data” collected by education systems in support of innovation and improvement?
On school organisation, there is need to develop forms of work organisation in schools in order to spur organisational learning and educational outcomes. A question to ask is how do professional interactions within schools, as well as individual and organisational learning and training effectively promote innovation?
On educational R&D, public and private investments are required to promote R&D on existing and new educational products and services. Questions to ask are; Can the education industry develop innovative tools grow to match the rate of innovation seen in other sectors? How is educational R&D structured and supported within the country?
On measuring innovation in education, there is need to develop ability to measure innovation, as it is essential to improving the innovation strategy in education. There is also need to know whether and how much practices are changing within classrooms and educational organisations.
And to what extent changes are linked to improvements as this strengthens the education knowledge base thus informing policy making. There is also need to get new information about innovations in education compared to other sectors.
Developing skills for innovation theme
The theme for developing skills for innovation explores the role of the education and training system in fostering the dispositions and skills that are conducive to innovation. In innovation-driven societies, education and training systems must empower people to innovate and to quickly respond to new skills needs generated by technological and organisational change.
This work identifies the skills required for innovative societies and analyses how different teaching and organisational practices help foster them.
The three main skills for innovation are technical skills, behavioural and social skills, and creative and critical thinking skills.
Technical skills are about know — what and know-how. Behavioural and social skills are about self-confidence, energy, perseverance, passion, leadership, collaboration and communication.
Creative and critical thinking skills are about creativity, critical thinking, observation, imagination, curiosity, connections and metacognition.
Innovation goes beyond content and procedural knowledge in a particular domain. People need to think critically, to challenge assumptions and conventions, and to be able to come up with new ideas and make connections.
It is also aided by behavioural and social skills that help people acquire technical skills, apply their creativity and critical thinking and put their ideas into action. While innovation skills empower people for innovation and give access to better jobs, they are also a driver of personal satisfaction and wellbeing.
Developing policy issues for education and training
The innovation strategy for education and training should explore a number of policy issues to help the country to scale up and mainstream effective approaches for the promotion of skills for innovation.
The following can be used to develop appropriate policies for innovation: Identify the education and training systems required to adapt to the evolving skill needs of highly innovative societies; Determine the different school and university subjects such as science, mathematics, arts, entrepreneurship that are required to help develop skills for innovation; Examine the pedagogies and teaching models, such as problem-based learning or metacognitive strategies, that may be more conducive to develop skills for innovation; and evaluate the models of workplace organisation, including professional development, that are most effective in encouraging and further developing skills for innovation.
Value chain analysis of education industry
There is a need to evaluate the current state of Zimbabwe’s education industry value chain with a view to developing local capacity for all the different players involved in the value chain. Decisions can then be made on how start-ups can be capacitated and then integrated to actively participate in the manufacturing and provision of education products and services.
The education industry focuses on providing education to the students as its primary goal. Levels of schooling in the education industry are; primary schools, secondary schools, high schools, vocational training colleges, polytechnic colleges, institutes and academies, universities, and Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education.
The education industry supply chain consists of primary and supporting activities. The primary activities are directly involved in the production of products and services and adding value to the educational institutes.
The five primary activities in the education industry supply chain are inbound logistics, outbound logistics, operations, marketing and sales, and services. The supporting activities are infrastructure, human resources management, technological development and procurement.
Inbound logistics of the education industry consist of suppliers network and quality education.
The main suppliers in the education industry are educational institutes, schools, colleges and universities, stationery items, books and book publishers, teachers, furniture craftsmen, suppliers of school uniforms, schools shoes, school bags, school sports wear and school sports equipment.
In terms of ensuring quality education there are strict regulations for imparting knowledge and information to students. The objective is to improve the learning capabilities of the students and update the teaching skills of the teachers. This ensures that teachers deliver quality education to the students so that they solve challenges in their environment.
Outbound logistics of the education industry consist of using various transportation mediums and channels to distribute books, furniture, building materials and other suppliers to the educational institutes. They move suppliers and educational materials from the production and manufacturing facilities and the retail stores to the schools, colleges, universities and educational institutes.
Operations of the education industry consist of teaching and education methods and extra-curricular activities. Various teaching and education methods and strategies are used to impart and deliver knowledge to students. Depending on the location and availability of teachers, the educational and learning classes could be face-to-face or virtual.
The teaching style could be traditional lecture based, activity-based learning or back and forth engaging style. Every teaching and educational style has its own pros and cons. Along with teaching knowledge to the students in the classrooms, educational institutes also conduct extracurricular activities for students.
They comprise of sports events, debating and speech, drama, music, camping and swimming. The objective of all such activities is to build confidence among students and promote team spirit among them. Various marketing and advertisement campaigns are run by educational institutes, in order to promote their educational products and services.
They employ various media channels and marketing strategies to approach their targeted customers and users.
The education industry also offers a wide range of services to students and users. The additional services help them to promote the brand reputation and attract the attention of potential new students and parents include education and learning; online classes; supportive educational material; and extracurricular activities.
Supporting activities are indirectly involved in the production of products and services and adding value to the educational institutes. Some of the main supporting activities in the education supply chain are infrastructure, human resources management, technological development and procurement.
The education industry has established a very large infrastructure of schools, colleges, universities, professional teaching staff, sports grounds, and excellent furniture. The well-developed infrastructure would help educational institutes to smoothly perform their various learning operations and timely deliver educational services to students.
The human resource management of the education industry plays a key role in recruiting the right teachers for teaching, conducting training programmes for teachers to update their skills and expertise and maintaining the records of teachers, students and the school.
The education industry also invests a significant amount of capital resources on research and technological development for the development of new materials and advanced technology. The education industry complies with regulations in the procurement of raw materials, supplies and educational resources for students.
Developing the start-up community partnerships for the education sector
The start-up community can develop partnerships that will bring together all the different actors critical to the development of start-ups in the education sector. The industry should partner with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, and Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education. The industry regulator is the Zimbabwe Council of Higher Education.
The partnerships should include Zimbabwe Teachers Association, Progressive Teachers Union Zimbabwe, the financial institutions with a specific focus on the education sector, and businesses in the education sector. The research institute is yet to be established. At present it is a proposed Bill called Centre for Education Innovation, Research and Development Bill.
The respective partnerships can carry out research activities to identify challenges requiring innovative solutions in the education sector. This information can assist in developing innovation competitions/challenge looking for start-ups who can develop a business case to address the Innovation Challenge, which can then be scaled up for the African continent.
Nokuthula G Moyo-Muparuri, is a senior lecturer at the Midlands State University in the Faculty of Business Sciences. She is also the founder of the Institute of Applied Entrepreneurship. The mission of the institute is start-up/innovation skills development and start-up/innovation ecosystem development. The institute has established Zimbabwe start-up clubs initiative, to capacitate start-ups and provide mentorship. Those interested can contact the institute on +263718747621.
Bongani Ndlovu