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Adelaide Moyo and Clement Mukwasi Chronicle Reporters
Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has called upon local universities to join hands with the government in research initiatives that will promote and drive socio-economic development, value addition and sustainable use of resources.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the First International Research Conference for the Midlands State University in Victoria Falls, VP Mnangagwa said universities need to collaborate with dedicated government institutions that are prepared to support the principles of Zim-Asset.
He said the industrial parks concept which the government is introducing requires a lot of research skills from universities for inventions to become a success.
“I’m sure that we all have heard of the industrial parks which the government is introducing. Research is a pillar of these parks as inventions are a real business. We implore the universities to partner with government in the field of research to ensure that we don’t export raw materials to Western countries. We should, instead, promote value addition and sustainable resource utilisation,” said VP Mnangagwa.
The Vice President, however, expressed concern that some universities come up with good research papers but never avail them for use preferring to file them away in well decorated libraries for academics.
“Research findings must not remain buried in learned journals and other high-flown intellectual texts where it’s only available to policymakers. It must be translated to the language and texts of the common people so that it benefits them and helps to transform their lives for the better,” he said.
VP Mnangagwa pleaded with universities’ Departments of African Languages to write literature on various subjects and programmes for the so-called minority languages such as Kalanga, Tonga, Nambiya, Venda and Birwa, among others.
“As an exercise, we’ll enable the speakers of these languages to participate in developmental issues that affect them as they’ll feel empowered to play their rightful roles. These linguists should be challenged further to expand societal freedoms of these communities through the elevation of their languages by way of translating key national documents such as Zim-Asset for their reading,” he said.
Speaking at the same occasion, the Minister of State for Matabeleland North province, Cde Cain Mathema, said universities should work together for research purposes.
He said working together will help tertiary institutions come up with practical business solutions.
“Your research findings should be secretive and should be treated as business. Let’s have universities that work together in research on the manufacturing of, for example, tractors and production of diesel, petrol and biogas,” he said.
About 300 delegates attended the conference which ended yesterday. Some of the delegates came from Botswana and South Africa.
The conference was held under the theme: “Driving socio-economic development through value addition and sustainable use of resources.”
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