adminWellington Dengu Herald Reporter
The Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) said it will continue to enrol more civil engineering students from all its brigades dotted around the country as it moves to help the civil society in fighting natural disasters which has bedevilled the nation.
Officiating at the graduation ceremony of 14 Civil Engineering students who completed a four-year duration Diploma in Civil Engineering, Brigadier General Training, Brigadier General Ephias Mahachi said ZNA will prioritise training of civil engineers as the high demand of their job has increased due to natural disasters which have recently affected the nation.
“ZNA realised the need to equip its combat engineers with the much-needed analytical, design and technical skills that underpin modern Engineer Units. The completion of this course is a clear manifestation of the modern army capable of undertaking global engagements anywhere across the world,” Brig-Gen Mahachi said.
He also emphasised the need for graduating students to aim higher in the execution of their duties.
“The greater portion lies ahead, let me remind you that you will be required to analyse, design, construct and render advice on engineer related matters to your commanders at various levels. Provide proper professional advice and apply yourselves diligently without cutting corners,” he said.
Commander Zimbabwe Engineers Colonel Aaron Edwards said training urged ZNA engineers to have the zeal to upgrade themselves to be able to tally with modern standards in the field.
“All personnel in technical and engineering fields of the Army are to be trained to the highest possible level of that speciality to conduct research and development in the army.
“The benefit to the nation is to cut depending on other countries, but rather to share experience for example our engineers are working together in Chimanimani to construct damaged infrastructure.”
Commandant Zimbabwe School of Military Engineering(ZSME) Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Maregere said the school will continue to have zero tolerance to incompetence.
“The number of students graduating today as you can witness is reduced because of the high demand on the course plus the duration, fours years for Diploma, itself scares most potential students because HEXCO as one of our board has its own standards and us as ZMSE we have our own standards, so this is a lot. The field of civil engineering is a demanding field so we value quality not quantity,” he said.
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