Education 5.0 churns out skilled graduates

Bulawayo Bureau

THE Second Republic is re-modelling the country’s education sector to produce skilled graduates who respond to national challenges as opposed to just seeking employment.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira speaking at the recent 64th Hillside Teachers’ College graduation ceremony in Bulawayo said while there were large numbers of people seeking jobs, there were also a lot of untapped opportunities.

It was the first college graduation ceremony since the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020. A total of 1 035 students drawn from 2018, 2019 and 2020 classes graduated yesterday in a hybrid programme where some of them physically attended the event while others followed proceedings virtually.

The graduation ceremony was running under the theme: “Towards Vision 2030: Blended learning in human capital development”.

Government adopted Education 5.0 with the aim of producing graduates who are hands-on and respond to national problems.

Prof Murwira said while a lot of people are crying for employment, shortage of schools, food deficit and imports show that there are untapped opportunities in the country. Zimbabwe is exporting labour through high dependency on imports.

“But the paradox is that we say we are educated so I’m just here to say what does it mean? We have to build our country. We have to build the dignity of our people that have been insulted for more than 500 years. Remember we have so many sovereignties, there is political sovereignty and political sovereignty means we can choose our leaders,” he said.

“But what we are moving into as a Second Republic is to try and knock at the very pillars that make a nation exist. We need scientific sovereignty where we make and discover our things. We have to have technological sovereignty; we have to have resource sovereignty. We need to have people who participate and develop their country.”

Prof Murwira said Zimbabweans were trained to seek employment as opposed to controlling the means of production and in developing the country that mindset has to change. He said the 42 years of the country’s independence have been a lesson that it cannot be business as usual.

Prof Murwira said the higher and tertiary education sector must lead Zimbabwe’s transformation through decolonising the mind.

“So, we are really knocking at the core of what exactly are we really teaching each other which makes us desperate instead of triumphal. Have we asked ourselves that some people come here (to Zimbabwe) with nothing except their brands and we start queuing at their companies.

“How is it possible that you know more about Shakespeare than you know about Mzilikazi? Shakespeare is not your grandfather. What kind of education makes you laugh at your mother? So, something went wrong and we are correcting that now.”

Education that does not produce medicine, water, food, and shelter among others is not worth pursuing.

Prof Murwira said Zimbabweans will suffer in future if efforts are not made to address the country’s problems with the hope that someone else will come and solve them.

He said Government expects the newly graduated teachers to establish schools and it is ready to support them in doing so.

“In the Second Republic, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Dr E.D Mnangagwa pronounced the policy that Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo (Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo) a country is built by its own people that is how a country gets its dignity. Our education must lead us to do things that will restore the dignity of this nation,” he said.

Prof Murwira said the country requires skilled citizens and to that effect the Second Republic scrapped Education 3.0 where graduates were only cramming and failing to execute.

“We started Education 5.0 where we allow our people to start start-ups, to start industry and all these things. The Government role is to make sure we have funded that process and we want to start with this group and we are not joking. We are now challenging new graduates to occupy and utilise the whole education value chain. Let’s start forming consortiums and building those schools,” said Prof Murwira.

He said the same vigour that moved Zimbabwe from colonial shackles in the 1950s should be embraced in the economic emancipation of the country.

Hillside Teachers’ College principal Mrs Linda Sibindi said the college has embraced Education 5.0 which delivers goods and services.

“As a college, our thrust to teacher education is not simply producing teachers who will just be effective in the classroom to teach subjects and help students attain great symbols. The teacher we produce at Hillside Teachers’ College is one who should solve problems in society and transform learners into industrialists and innovators rather than ‘parrots’ who can recite without any practical application,” said Mrs Sibindi.

She said some of the students at the college have designed applications to be used by financial institutions while the college has embarked on fisheries projects.

Mrs Sibindi said the college has made inroads towards mainstreaming indigenous languages and is now enrolling students in SeSotho, TjiKalanga, TshiVenda and ChiTonga.