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President Emmerson Mnangagwa

Nyemudzai Kakore, Harare Bureau
President Emmerson Mnangagwa will tomorrow meet vice chancellors, deans, directors of institutes and heads of departments to determine the contribution of tertiary institutions in economic development through research and teaching.

The meeting, to take place at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC), will run under the theme “The role of universities in growing the economy.”

In a circular dated January 5, 2018 to all institutions, invited guests are advised to be seated by 0730 hours.

The programme will run from 8.30am to 2pm.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Dr Desire Sibanda said over 500 delegates were expected to attend the highly subscribed indaba.

“Preparations are at an advance stage, where a draft programme has been created. Institutions of higher and tertiary learning, both private and public, have selected their participants to represent them at the meeting,” he said.

“Institutions of higher learning will display their plans going forward on having a competitive research system, which researches for Government and industry to ensure an increase in the country’s gross domestic product. The country must leverage on its human resource base and educational institutions to process raw materials into finished products.”

Dr Sibanda said business representative bodies such as the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Mines would be given space to react to the presentations at the meeting.

He said the meeting would also highlight the ministry’s 100-day plan which, among the other 13 proposals drafted, seeks to establish innovation hubs at six State universities.

“We will also be able to bring together industries, who are the main beneficiaries of the programmes that are conducted by universities, that they become involved in initiatives which feed into policymaking and implementation by Government,” he said.

“The end product is that policies in Government are well researched after being conducted by the universities. In turn, Government will commit itself to support our universities. This has been done by many countries that have realised high economic growth.”

Dr Sibanda recently indicated the crucial indaba was occasioned by President Mnangagwa’s desire to grow the economy.

“They are meeting President Mnangagwa who has already laid out his vision for the country to move to a new trajectory of growing the economy. We want the President to be aware of what tertiary institutions are doing. The vision of the ministry is to contribute immensely and expeditiously towards the turnaround of the economy,” he said.

“Countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan invested a lot in terms of research and promoting education. There should be research in mining, agriculture, industry and health to mention just a few. The current position is that five of our major exports are all unprocessed raw materials. We want to call upon universities to research and increase our manufacturing of products.”