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Walter Mswazie  Masvingo Correspondent
THE government is working on modalities to start exporting skilled manpower to neighbouring countries as demand for local graduates increases, a Cabinet Minister has said.Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Cde Oppah Muchinguri made the remarks when addressing hundreds of college and university students at Masvingo Polytechnic in Masvingo on Friday.

Cde Muchinguri said the demand for local university graduates abroad is very high that very soon her ministry will sign memoranda of understanding with a number of Sadc countries with the view of exporting them.

“As a Ministry, we’re working on modalities to have a number of graduates from local universities and colleges go to our neighbouring countries where they will be employed. Very soon, we will be signing memoranda with the concerned countries,” said Cde Muchinguri.

She said countries like Namibia, DRC, Mozambique and Botswana have expressed interest in recruiting graduates from local institutions of higher learning.

“There are countries which have extended an olive branch to our graduates from local universities. Namibia needs teachers, engineers, administrators from Zimbabwe. This also applies to others like South Africa, Mozambique and even the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These countries want graduates from Zimbabwe because of our record in literacy rates. We are the best in Africa,” she said.

She however, called upon graduates to be innovative and stop being employment seekers but creators of jobs so as to be in line with the ever changing economic environment.

“While government is making frantic efforts towards giving our graduates employment in other countries where they will earn far higher salaries than what is earned locally, our clarion call is they should learn to create employment. The government has also unveiled many entrepreneurial programmes to assist graduates especially youth with the will to venture into businesses,” she said.