Government works on digitised higher education data management system

GOVERNMENT is building a higher education management information system, which will provide a data portal for all higher and tertiary institutions for improved policy-making as statistics will be available on fingertips.

The digitised data management system will centralise data collection, addressing challenges where those seeking institutional data would visit each college or university to obtain it.

The new system will provide statistics on the number of graduates per programme while also storing information about staffing levels.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Permanent Secretary, Professor Fanuel Tagwira, said the system will be equal to a granary for information.

“We are building the higher education management information system. It will help us to collect information on the number of people we have sent for training and how many have not come back.

“If I want that information I have to get in touch with every university and get the statistics together,” he said.

“This system is going to be tremendously important, we call it dura/isiphala or granary. It helps us as decision makers as it will consolidate data,” said Prof Tagwira.

“It will also provide information at fingertips on how many people graduated in engineering in a particular year. It’s a good tool for decision-making and it’s a good tool to help the universities themselves to see how they are able to contribute to meet the human capital needs of the country.”

He said the country is also recording skills flight, especially among lecturers who leave the country to advance studies but do not come back upon completing their studies.

“The idea is for them to come back and fill the human capital gap in your universities and in your colleges. Many times, those people come back, but there are times when those people don’t come back,” said Prof Tagwira. “In the past, what we used to do when you are going out, we used to do what we call bonding, which means when we send you to school, you will go and study and when you come back you will work for university or Government for so many years before you can leave and it worked very well,” he said.

“But when someone chooses not to come back, let’s assume they have got a job in South Africa, United Kingdom or United States of America or wherever, there is no way we can get the money from them.

“There is no way you can penalise them because there is no co-operation with that country, which allows them to send those people back.”

Prof Tagwira said learning from other developing countries, Zimbabwe can also benefit from its skilled personnel who migrate to other countries.

He said, for instance, India scholars have managed to attract investment to their countries after their initial migration.

“But here is the key thing, we want to train our people whether they come back or not, we want to empower them. What we know is that because they are Zimbabweans, what we should inculcate in them is that, should they not come back, how else should they contribute to our country?” said Prof Tagwira.

“As we are now in higher and tertiary education, there are many people who have left but are contributing to higher education,” he said.

“If you look at countries like India, a lot of those who went to countries like the US and never came back, are the ones who have now been involved in attracting business from that country to their country. They are the ones who have attracted Silicon Valley to go and invest in India and train young people to become programmers.”

Prof Tagwira said the country does not always look at individuals who leave the country as a loss as most of them are investing back in the country or supporting families back home.

Diaspora remittances are among the country’s top foreign currency earners for Zimbabwe as US$1,8 billion was received in 2023, a 16 percent increase from the previous year. — @nqotshili