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Herald Reporter
The Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) and the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) have agreed to facilitate and host a summer school to bridge the gap between academia and industry.
Summer school is a programme generally sponsored by a school or a school district, or provided by a private company, that provides lessons and activities during the summer vacation.
This comes after MAZ noted a myriad of practical marketing trends were emerging in industry due to the changing technological landscape. They thus wanted the collaboration to provide an interface where industry outlines the practical marketing applications in industry, while the academics share relevant research findings.
In a statement, MAZ executive secretary, Mr Gillian Rusike said the agreement resonated with the association’s thrust to promote marketing professionalism and synergies, thereby ensuring that marketing is learnt, recognised and implemented to the highest levels for economic sustainability.
“Over the years we have envisaged such a partnership where industry and academia meet to exchange ideas. We are happy that we have the UZ partnering us in this historic initiative.
“We have marketing graduates across universities in Zimbabwe that have done extensive research and innovations as part of their final year objectives and disappointingly most of these projects are stacked up at the faculty office and gather dust ,yet they have an impact on today’s industry,” he said.
Mr Rusike said the agreement will cement the relations between industry and academia and resonated with the Government’s education 5.0 thrust.
“This summer school will be open to all universities in Zimbabwe and industry personnel. We are also inviting students with the best projects to come through and share their projects with industry.
“This will create synergies that will also get value through implementation of new research findings from the marketing students,” said Mr Rusike.
Proposed dates for the summer school are September 9 to 10, 2021 at the UZ Post-Graduate Centre.
UZ Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Paul Mapfumo said the partnership is a great initiative which is creating a base for real practical contact between graduate students and industry.
Online Reporter