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The Chancellor of Midlands State Univeristy President Mugabe caps a graduand at the university’s 13th graduation ceremony held at the campus yesterday

From Patrick Chitumba in Gweru
President Mugabe yesterday conferred degrees on a record 4,719 graduates at the 13th Midlands State University graduation ceremony in Gweru. The graduates excelled in various undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes in commerce, science, law and music. The graduates were made up of 46 percent women and 54 percent men.

Of the 4,719 graduates, 632 gained Masters degrees, one Master of Philosophy and four graduated with Doctor of Philosophy degrees.

MSU vice- chancellor Professor Ngwabi Bhebhe said the graduates were eager to transform the provisions of the ZimAsset philosophy into tangible reality through formal employment and through individual entrepreneurship. “We strongly subscribe to the view that a robust local government system is the bedrock of any meaningful development as it is the level of government that is closest to the people,” he said.

“As evidenced by erratic water supplies, pot-holed roads, mountains of garbage, dilapidated infrastructure, including non-functional street lights and regular sewer bursts in our cities, our local government wheels seem to have come off the rails.”

Prof Bhebhe said against that background, ZimAsset was a welcome take-off point for the university, whereby the Department of Local Governance was finalising an memorandum of agreement with the International Centre for Local Democracy in Sweden to capacitate female councillors.

He said another partnership agreement would be operationalised in January next year with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum focusing on capacity development in local authorities.

“In response to the requests from our first degree holders who’re already in employment, we will also be launching a Master’s Programme on Local Governance in 2015. All these efforts are aimed at ensuring that our local government system, which is currently under stress, is assisted in every way possible to become more responsive to community needs and concerns,” said Prof Bhebhe.

He said his institution was seized with academic discourse on climate change adding that the Faculty of Natural Resources Management will soon introduce seed cultivars which he said would take two and a half months to mature or ultra-early maturing varieties that are both drought and heat resistant.

Prof Bhebhe said the university was about to finalise the preparations for the establishment of the Faculty of Medicine and that of Mining Science.

“The Faculty of Medicine, which will initially be operated as an affiliate of the University of Zimbabwe Medical School will be opened in 2015,” he said.

Prof Bhebhe said the university had purchased latest medical equipment for teaching and research purposes.

He said previously various specimens had to be sent to either Bulawayo or Harare but the MSU Medical School would eliminate that inconvenience.

Regarding the establishment of the Faculty of Mining Science, Prof Bhebhe said the university was leasing part of Shabanie Mashava Mining Holdings offices to accommodate their programmes.

“We’ve made tremendous progress in the incubation of a higher education institution in Manicaland as the Manicaland College of Applied Science is up and running, with students already in their third semester,” he said.

MSU has 450 lecturers.