Chronicle Editor
Wilbrought Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter
THREE schools from the Matabeleland region, David Livingstone High, John Tallach High and Masiyephambili College are set to participate at the national engineering competition to be held in Harare after coming out tops at a competition in Bulawayo recently.
A total of 14 schools participated in the Annual Zimbabwe Institute of Engineers Matabeleland chapter competition titled “Aqualibrium (water), Bridge Building Schools Competition and Robotics 2023” held recently at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust).
The competition focused on three branches of engineering namely the water connection system competition, bridge building, robotics and artificial intelligence. David Livingstone High School of Ntabazinduna won in the robotics and artificial intelligence category, John Tallach High School also of Ntabazinduna in the bridge building category and Masiyephambili College of Bulawayo in the water supply category. The schools are going to the national competition to face other schools in Harare which will see the national winners going to South Africa to compete there on 25 August.
The Zimbabwe Institute of Engineers (ZIE) chairperson of the education and training sub-committee chapter, Engineer Dumani Gwetu said science subjects were the foundation to the inspiration of the (ZIE) competition.
“We looked into the school curriculum and we saw the basics and fundamentals of engineering. It is those concepts we have built these competitions on. The objective primarily is to build up on the school curricular in sciences and to inspire the scholars to consider engineering as a career so the quiz also served as a career guidance too,” he said.
He said the engineering profession was not a profession that exists in isolation and they were removing the fear of the engineering field as a complicated one from the students’ mindset. Eng Gwetu said students must have an understanding and basic knowledge that engineering begins at school and when they are doing their sciences at O-level that would be basics and concepts of engineering.
He added: “ZIE has got their counterparts in South Africa called South African Institute of Civil Engineers and this competition held at Nust is going to be replicated on 25 August in South Africa. Our best winning schools here will proceed there to compete with South African schools so basically that’s what we are seeing here today.”
Nust Dean in the Faculty of Engineering, Dr Busiso Mthunzi said what inspired them to hold the competition was the need to sensitise the students that engineering was an area they could be involved in and by being involved in these projects it tells them what kind of issues they would be able to deal with.
A Hamilton science teacher, Mr Christopher Chakwanha said the competition was an eye-opener to the students helping to bridge the gap between what they teach in physics and mathematics and what happens in real life.
“What I found most beneficial was the respective engineers coming to talk to students about the different engineering fields that are there and the job prospects that comes with the field. I think it also raises awareness because you find that most learners know that there is engineering but do not know that there are different types of engineering that they can specialise in,” he said.
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