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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
LOCAL universities have appealed to the Government to unfreeze some of the critical vacancies at higher and tertiary institutions to improve human capital development.
Government in 2011 introduced a job freeze across sectors in a bid to contain its ballooning budget.
In separate interviews, officials at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) and Lupane State University (LSU) said while their institutions were expanding, they still faced serious shortages of skilled manpower to complement their growth.
Nust Vice Chancellor, Professor Mqhele Dlodlo, said the shortage of critical staff needs urgent attention from the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development.
“The situation is a serious one. I’m not sure how fast the Ministry is addressing it. The shortage of critical staff and vacancies that were affected by the freeze… we have been clamouring for the Ministry to assist us to refinance those positions so that we can re-advertise and get people hired,” said Prof Dlodlo.
He said Nust has been employing part time staffers to keep the university business afloat.
Employing part time staffers, Prof Dlodlo said, was subjecting full time staffers to too much work.
“With the expansion in capital development, we do need to staff that part of Nust which did not exist before. We now have a substantive Pro Vice Chancellor of Innovation and Business Development. We have acting managers and acting directors, we still need to have a projects office, we still need a legal services office. We need a kind of team that will be the brains behind the actual construction work that will take place,” he said.
At LSU, the university director of marketing and communication, Mr Zwelithini Dlamini, said the institution is expected to introduce new courses, yet it does not have the staff complement.
“We have been negatively impacted in the sense that there are new programmes that have been approved by the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (Zimche) as at end of 2018. Those programmes effectively started this very semester at the beginning of 2019 January,” said Mr Dlamini.
“We appreciate that the Government had given us about 34 posts but most of those posts were for programmes that have already been approved. So for these latest programmes among other Engineering programmes, we still have gaps that need to be filled. So we would really appreciate if Government would unfreeze some posts to allow us to recruit and service those programmes.”
He said at the moment the university is employing temporary staff but the move was unsustainable.
Mr Dlamini said management at LSU has notified the parent Ministry of challenges affecting the growing university.
“We have to improvise and bring part timers to assist in servicing those programmes. But as you would appreciate part timers are not the best arrangement because we are looking at setting of examinations and general assessment of students. It’s best done with people who are full time,” he said.
“Management is seized with that matter and they have presented their case to Government. We are hoping, as insinuated by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, (Professor Mthuli Ncube), that they will make some provision for universities to recruit staff. We are yet to receive the formal communication to that effect and to get to know what number we can recruit.”
—@nqotshili
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