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Professor Jonathan Moyo

Pamela Shumba, Senior Reporter
The Government will bring back students loans and grants starting next year in an effort to improve skills and manpower development, a Cabinet Minister has said.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo told delegates who attended the just ended Zanu-PF Annual National People’s Conference in Masvingo that his ministry has already engaged the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to structure the new student loan scheme.

“The ministry has engaged the RBZ to structure a student loan scheme for higher and tertiary education institutions to be run by financial institutions with proven micro-financing capacity,” said Prof Moyo.

“This scheme will be launched in the coming year to help parents and guardians who are struggling to pay higher and tertiary education fees for their children.”

Student grants were discontinued sometime in 2006 due to cash flow challenges and the facility was succeeded by the cadetship programme in 2010. The latter did not yield any positive results as it was dogged by lack of funding and failed to pay fees for scores of students.

Due to delays in payment under cadetship most students failed to sit for examinations as institutions demanded payment. Some universities denied students on cadetship registration and accommodation forcing many to defer studies.

Professor Moyo said after an extensive consultation process his ministry concluded that Zimbabwe’s quest for industrialisation and modernisation will not be achieved without a new human capital base driven by technological and engineering skills across the economy in the public and private sectors.

“No country anywhere in the world has industrialised and modernised its economy without technological and engineering skills taking centre stage and leading the way. It is not possible to create and develop a new industrialised and modernised economy without requisite skills in the form of human capital. Skills are the engine of industrialisation and modernisation,” he said.

The minister also revealed that a decision on the infrastructure bond for higher and tertiary education institutions had been finalised by the State Procurement Board.

“The decision will be made public shortly after the usual formalities have been done. It is hoped that the bond will go a long way towards addressing challenges such as student and staff accommodation as well as administrative and learning infrastructure,” said Professor Moyo.

He said the interventions are part of a raft of measures by the ministry to ensure that universities are relevant to national policy challenges and meet the training and research needs of society and industry.

“As an expression of Zim-Asset, the implementation of industrialising and modernising Zimbabwe is the creation and development of a new economy, which Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa and RBZ Governor, Dr John Mangudya, have been talking about,” said the minister.

He added that the interventions were also meant to overcome the challenges being faced by tertiary institutions under the Zim-Asset banner of STEM263.

“Our aim is to ensure that universities are relevant to national policy challenges and meet the training and research needs of society and industry,” said Prof Moyo.

In this regard, he added, the ministry will be announcing next week a Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) grant of $150 000 to a consortium of researchers from some of the country’s national universities and their counterparts from the Sadc region.

@pamelashumba1