Chronicle Editor
Angel Nkomo, Sunday News Reporter
HIGHER learning institutions in the country will continue with a blended type of learning as new cases of the Covid-19 pandemic continue to rise.
This will see the institutions combine face-to-face lectures with online lessons, with the face-to-face lectures, however, being more limited.
In an interview with Sunday News, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation and Science and Technology Development Professor Amon Murwira, said with the pandemic seemingly increasing, the sector was bracing for yet another year of blended learning while also implementing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
“Covid-19 has continued to affect face-to-face learning which resulted in the introduction of blended learning. For our part our institutions continue adhering to the SOPs so that we contain the spread of the pandemic.
“Everything about this pandemic is situational hence we will have to continue with blended learning while we also encourage our learners, lecturers and ancillary staff to get vaccinated,” said Prof Murwira.
He said they continued to also observe the situation within the higher learning institutions and whenever there is a surge in cases at an individual institution they then suspend the face to face lectures and resort to online learning only.
“At the University of Zimbabwe for example we decided to stop the face to face lectures on 9 December, a week earlier than their planned end of year break,” said the Minister.
Prof Murwira said since universities and other institutions of higher learning had their own health facilities, they were pushing all personnel to be vaccinated.
“At every tertiary institution there is a clinic and the Ministry of Health and Child Care has authorised that they also become vaccination centres for the staff that are there. We are thus encouraging all those within the sector to take advantage of this and get vaccinated.
“We are also being guided by the Ministry of Health and Child Care and the country’s lockdown regulations in all our activities noting the importance for us to create a conducive environment in line with health and safety regulations,” he said.
Prof Murwira urged the nation to fight the Covid-19 pandemic in an organised manner and follow all the laid down protocols, as this was the only way they were going to win the battle against the pandemic.
A number of institutions of higher learning in the country have made it compulsory for all its learners to be fully vaccinated for them to be able to attend face to face lectures.
Last month the Midlands State University directed that their students who were not fully vaccinated would be required to undergo a Covid-19 PCR test twice a week.
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