‘Education must be a value chain of opportunities’

Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief

GOVERNMENT has directed Mkoba Teachers’ College (MTC) to immediately embark on an innovation and industrialisation programme that allows graduates to form start-up businesses.

Addressing guests and graduates when he presented diplomas to more than 800 teachers that graduated at the college on Friday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister, Professor Amon Murwira, said start-up enterprises should be set up to create new schools and new factories for manufacturing teaching materials and apparatus. “As a Second Republic, we have decided to provide this capital for startups. The college is directed to immediately start an innovation and industrialisation programme that allows graduates to form start-ups.

This translates to saying that we can establish industries related to the whole education system. As mentioned before, examples can be establishment of a simple teaching aids manufacturing factory, a pencil manufacturing industry, production and printing of learning materials among others,” said Minister Murwira

He said the graduation was special as it produced the first cohort of Science Secondary School Teachers following Government’s decision to make MTC one of the colleges to offer secondary school science teacher training. “This programme is a logical response to the National Skills Audit results of 2018, which showed three percent skills levels in natural sciences. We believe that through this programme, we are hitting at the heart of the problem of skills shortage in this area, congratulations Mkoba,” said Prof Murwira.

He said President Mnangagwa’s vision of making Zimbabwe an upper middle-income economy by 2030 was achievable hence the National Development Strategy (NDS1) has quality education and skills development among its key pillars. “To us in the Higher and Tertiary Education Sector this directly translates to delivering an education anchored on innovation in order to drive industry,” said Minister Murwira.

He said this is why Government adopted the Heritage-Based Education 5.0 philosophy and framework, a radical departure from Education 3.0 that produced employment seekers instead of graduates that create employment. “A country develops based on the minds of its people working on its natural endowments,” said Prof Murwira.

He said the theme of this year’s graduation: “An innovative teacher — A cornerstone to heritage-based practices” resonates with Heritage Based Education 5.0.

Innovativeness, Prof Murwira said, is one of the most important skills of the 21st century and is thus embraced as one of the five pillars of Education 5.0.

“In other words, we are now producing a teacher who can tap into the wealth of our diverse heritage to place the country on its own self-determined development path. My message today is that we must look at education as a value chain full of opportunities. Just think for a moment what you need to run a school or a training institute, all those things that you need, require to be produced,” he said.

Minister Murwira said the job of today’s teacher is not just to stand in front of a class and teach based on instruments, apparatus and materials produced by others.

Going forward, Minister Murwira said, Government expects all teachers’ colleges to establish affiliate school networks. “These schools are part of the industrial park system of the college. Zimbabwe has a deficit of more than 3 000 schools. Under the industrialisation programme, we shall support graduate startups to establish their own schools in the process empowering themselves and also creating employment for others,” he said.

Prof Murwira said an education, which cannot produce jobs by itself, is not relevant at all. “Now that you have been equipped with the necessary skills to transform society, go therefore and diligently work for your country and share far and wide the new thrust on industrialisation and modernisation of the education sector,” he said.

MTC acting principal, Mr Martin Mukwazhe, said of the 863 graduates 314 are from the ECD class, 464 from the general class and the secondary science education group had 85. “We have a total of 303 distinctions of which 122 are from the ECD class, 132 from the general class and 49 from secondary science education class.

“The pass rates are as follows: ECD class 100 percent, general class 99,1 percent and secondary class 93,41 percent,” he said.