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Munyaradzi Musiiwa Midlands Correspondent
THE government is reviewing tertiary institutions’ curriculum to ensure that they offer degree and diploma programmes that are relevant to the country’s economic and industrial requirements. In an interview on the sidelines of a graduation ceremony at Gweru Polytechnic on Friday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Deputy Minister, Dr Godfrey Gandawa said tertiary institutions, especially universities, are offering degree programmes and producing graduates that are not relevant to the requirements of the economy and industry.

Dr Gandawa said the ministry was in the process of engaging industry to find out the quality and nature of degree programmes that are relevant to the economy.
“We have been producing skills and graduates that are a mismatch with what the industry requires. The ministry is gathering information from industry on what kind of graduates or programmes they require and through that we review our curriculum.

“We realised we have graduates from universities with distinctions but when they are released to industry they still need to be retrained on certain aspects. We want universities to focus more on the practical part so that there won’t be a mismatch of the theory and the practical aspect of degree programmes,” he said.

Dr Gandawa said the ministry had the mandate to fulfil and implement the call made by President Mugabe to introduce more programmes in the field of science and technology.
He said some universities have diverted from their mandate and core values as they are offering degree programmes that they were not tasked to offer. Dr Gandawa said these universities have been instructed to focus on their specific areas as well as producing quality graduates relevant to industry.

He said the ministry was in the process of setting up Gwanda State University that would specialise in mining and engineering.
“It is our mandate as the ministry. The President made the call that we need to focus more on science and technology. The call was made out of the realisation that some of our universities have shifted from their actual mandate due to economic challenges.

“For instance, the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) should be producing more graduates in science and technology but you realise they had shifted to commercial courses. We have universities that have the mandate for commercials, for instance, Midlands State University (MSU) has a mandate to train commercial and business courses. They should focus on that,” he said.

“Chinhoyi University of Technology, Nust and all other universities must focus on their mandate. In Gwanda we are going to set up a university that is going to deal specifically with mining and engineering courses. We have started to implement the call by President Mugabe and we must deliver.”

President Mugabe called on tertiary institutions to produce more qualified graduates particularly in the field of science and technology.
Addressing chiefs at their annual conference held in Gweru recently, the President said there was a need for the reorientation of universities and other tertiary institutions so that they produce more graduates in the field of mathematics, science and technology, particularly engineering.

He said sciences were becoming more relevant to industry in the wake of the value addition concept as enshrined in the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) blueprint.