Time to address the STEM of Zim education

Christopher Farai Charamba Correspondent
Zimbabweans are revered across the globe as industrious and intelligent people. Academically the nation’s institutions have produced competent graduates, who have gone on to occupy top positions in various fields locally and internationally.

At this juncture one would like to congratulate the 3 451 graduates capped at the University of Zimbabwe last Friday. Well done to those that showed resilience in their studies and persevered to the end.

It is disheartening and unfortunate, however, that the reality of the current Zimbabwean economic situation is that there are few jobs available.

Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Professor Jonathan Moyo recently commented on social media that: “Job opportunities are a real challenge. Those with arts, humanities and commercial degrees will struggle to find jobs.”

Of the 3 417 undergraduate and masters’ degrees conferred at the UZ, 1 003 were Faculty of Social Studies students, 782 Faculty of Commerce students and 620 students from the Faculty of Arts.

This brings the total to 2 405 students or 70,4 percent of the graduating population with arts, humanities and commercial degrees who the Minister said would struggle to find jobs.

With an increased number of students graduating annually from institutions across the country, the issue of job creation should be placed at the fore of the national agenda.

It should be seen as both a public and private sector concern with all efforts fixated only on creating and executing solutions.

One, however, will choose not to offer any solutions at this point, recalling the words of the late Chinua Achebe that: “Writers don’t give prescriptions. They give headaches!”

Returning to Minister Moyo’s social media interactions over the past week, when asked what people should study if not the arts or commercials, the Minister said Zimbabweans should rather focus on STEM courses.

STEM is acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and Minister Moyo raises a valid point. Only 93 students graduated from the Science Faculty while the Engineering Faculty had 135 graduates.

The two faculties combined made up 6,6 percent of the larger graduating population on the day. This is certainly a cause for concern in the 21st Century digital age. With technological advances taking place globally it is imperative that Zimbabwe adapts to the changing patterns.

While Zimbabwe boasts of having one of the highest literacy rates on the continent, the same cannot be said of computer literacy. According to Potraz, internet penetration in the country declined from 45 percent to 44,3 percent in the first quarter of the year.

About 99,05 percent of this internet penetration is through mobile internet subscriptions with only 15 percent of that being smart penetration. All this goes to illustrate that Zimbabweans are not techno savvy and this is a situation that needs to change.

Investing in STEM courses should encourage a greater number of people to go into those fields. This does not mean that the arts or commercial subjects are irrelevant but that there needs to be a balance in society.

The key to bringing about the change is by changing the curriculum to suit the changing global environment. From the time a child enters the academic arena the ideal scenario would be that they be exposed to science and technology.

Utopian thinking, however, is not always practical. Young children tend to be more techno savvy than the adults in society.

By giving them access to computers as a basic example they can further develop skills which they are already quick to learn.

In changing the curriculum to accommodate STEM courses there is also a need to change the methods of teaching. Sciences are more practical subjects and therefore the focus should be on creating and experimenting rather than just the theory.

Interactive learning through the use of the internet and other digital technologies is also an important method of teaching that should take place in the classroom.

Students should also be allowed to express themselves freely in their school work so as to encourage innovation which is an integral part of science and technology.

Career guidance is another prime concern that needs to be addressed. The traditional career options of lawyer, doctor and accountant, although important, are not the only choices that one has. Programming, applications and games development, network engineering, botany or oenology are other career options one can pursue.

All this does not mean that educationists should rule out arts and commercial courses altogether, but use an approach that combines aspects from each into the different fields. Knowledge of history and culture can certainly have an added advantage particularly to the creativity of an architect or a games developer for example.

On the opposite side of the coin, it would be prudent for someone in the arts field to have some knowledge of technology particularly computer literacy.

Technological skills in this age are akin to learning another language.

One certainty is that the promoting STEM courses will not come cheap. It will require equipping schools with the necessary technology and training teachers in the varied teaching methods. It would be futile to expect that one waits until A Level or university for them to focus on them.

The challenge therefore for Minister Moyo, who is an advocate of STEM courses and the Government, is how to finance these programmes? More often than not the policy is good but the execution is not.

Financing becomes a major hurdle in bringing projects and initiatives to fruition.

Change cannot be expected overnight, but this does not mean that the expedient implantation of STEM courses should be negated.

Zimbabwe this year outsourced the digital migration process to Chinese company Huawei. The nation lacks the skills, equipment and technical knowhow to carry out the process independently.

Outsourcing is certainly not frowned upon but there is need for there to be a skilled labour force in the STEM field so that the outsourcing does not continue eternally.

There is also need for local engineers and technicians to be able to service and repair the equipment should it breakdown so that one does not have to wait for a team from China to come and do so.

Technological advances cannot be ignored. They have been an important part of the development of countries around the world such as South Korea and Japan.

At a time when value addition has been raised as a necessary objective, developing and investing in STEM courses can have a positive impact on value addition and beneficiation in Zimbabwe.