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Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter—
THE Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development has set aside $4 million for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme that is being rolled out in schools this year. The Ministry last month announced that the government would pay full school and boarding fees for all pupils who register for science subjects at public schools at Advanced Level this year.

The funds will be released to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to pay for the fees.
Responding to questions in Parliament on Wednesday, Higher Education Deputy Minister Godfrey Gandawa said the $4 million will come from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef).

“Once they register in the schools, when we get the statistics, we will cause the release of the funds from the Zimdef fund to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to administer the funds in our secondary schools to pay for the tuition fees of these STEM students,” said Gandawa.

“Many people have asked where the fund is coming from because they are very sure that the country is in difficult times. We’ve always had a fund called Zimdef and I’m on record on many occasions trying to correct the misgivings that were happening.

“We’ve been channelling funds to the polytechnics, universities and teachers’ colleges and we’ve just decided to take $4 million from that fund that we’ve been channelling in these institutions to close the gap that we’ve realised… we need scientists to industrialise our economy,” said Gandawa.

He said the Ministry was serious in implementing STEM.
Gandawa said the programme was launched after it was realised that most students were taking commercials, arts and social sciences at university.

“We’ve a few students that are taking sciences at universities. The ministry found it fit to make sure that we increase the number of students from our Primary and Secondary Education sister ministry that will then take sciences to the universities,” he told MPs.

“We had to come up with a fund to make sure that we incentivise them because after a study that we carried out, we realised that most of the students could have passed Science at A-Level, but because of other reasons, they just chose not to take sciences at A-Level. This incentive is to encourage them to say even after you have got a C in these sciences, then you proceed and take on A-Level and you will later proceed to universities.”

He dismissed reports that there was a misunderstanding over the programme between his Ministry and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.

“I personally engaged the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education (Lazarus Dokora) to get access for us to get the drawback in their schools as our sister ministry. We got the approval from him through the acting Permanent Secretary then. The current acting Permanent Secretary was on leave,” he explained.

“We then went ahead and launched STEM as per directive. My ministry and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education are agents of the principal who is His Excellency, President Mugabe. So, there should not be any inconsistencies between us.”
He said at policy level, the two Ministries were in agreement that STEM was the way to go and the country is geared for it.
Gandawa said students intending to take up STEM subjects could start applying and registering in public schools of their  choice.

“Once they register in the schools, when we get the statistics, we will cause the release of the funds from the Zimdef fund to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to administer the funds in our secondary schools to pay for the tuition fees of these STEM students,” said Gandawa.

The Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) O-Level results were released on Tuesday, with candidates doing better in Mathematics and Science subjects as compared to 2014.

The results showed an increase in the pass rate from last year’s 22,38 to 27,86 percent.