‘S&T must drive economic growth’

Samantha Chigogo Herald Correspondent
Higher and tertiary institutions must be driven by science and technology to help spearhead the country’s industrialisation process, a Cabinet minister has said.

Speaking during a visit to Women’s University in Africa (WUA) premises in Harare recently, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Professor Jonathan Moyo (pictured right) said the institutions should spearhead science and technology in the country’s education system.

“Higher and tertiary institutions must be driven by science and technology and the time has come for Zimbabwe to industrialise and come up with strategies and scientific ways to address the objectives of Zim-Asset in all sectors,” he said.

Prof Moyo said he was worried over the failure by Zimbabwean universities to compete in the global economy.

“We are bothered over how we failed to secure a better position in the recent rankings of top universities in Africa yet we boast of being the most intellect country in the continent, it only shows that we really need to act up and do something about this,” he said.

“We must not be social universities, but rather universities that can easily get compared to others, we also need to understand what it is that is making our universities fall short of their African counterparts.”

Prof Moyo said academic qualifications had to be questioned at all institutions.

“We will be demanding universities to come up with benchmarks as to what they are targeting or what they are involved in,” he said.

“Part-time lecturers are not ideal and for our university quality operations, how does one expect to get a degree from someone who is only at the university for a few hours a day.”

“We have to be rigorous in what we are doing and we do not want to hear any excuses. Let us go back to the basics as we must have stern foundations within our academic structures.”

Prof Moyo said local universities should focus on value addition and beneficiation of the country’s intellectual and material resources.

“Institutions must be principally interested in value addition and intellectual beneficiation, you need to do things that are meaningful to your intellectual enterprise as the ministry will judge universities on their capabilities to add value to the nation,” he said.

Prof Moyo said the interactions would help in boosting the higher and tertiary education as a sector responsible for manpower and critical skills development that the economy needs for socio-economic transformation.

Government would soon reveal details of the nationwide interactions with representatives of institutions and map the way forward.