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Editor — While the people of Matabeleland North Province were on cloud nine celebrating the establishment of the first ever teachers’ college in the district with renowned natural resources; the giant coal mine, the Hwange National Park, the station that powers the nation, the Victoria Falls, the magnificent Zambezi river and the flamboyant Victoria Falls International Airport, their joy was to be short lived as it meant the closing up of yet another institution of higher learning, the Zimbabwe Open University. 

The people of Mat North Province, particularly those from Hwange and Binga districts, who have been yearning for the establishment of colleges and universities in the two districts for so many years, were the happiest lot in the land after having been blessed with two institutions of higher learning. 

First it was the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) that beat the odds when it relocated its Matabeleland North Provincial Campus from Bulawayo to Hwange in 2015, living true to its mission of taking education to the door steps of the learners. In the month of May 2019 the new Hwange Teacher’s College (HTC) also opened its doors and registered its first ever 150 students. 

Although it needed the 60th edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo in May 2019 for the local chiefs and the political leadership from Matabeleland North Province to confront the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education to establish a teachers’ college in Hwange, 40 years after Zimbabwe attained its Independence, it is indeed better late than never. Matabeleland North Province has been seriously marginalised in as far as higher and tertiary education is concerned. 

Thanks to the ministry for heeding to the call for this kind of higher learning. The Hwange Teachers’ College is an annex of United College of Education (UCE) which is based in Bulawayo and is sharing the same premises with ZOU. These premises are owned by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) and they are superintended over by the Better Schools Programme of Zimbabwe (BSPZ), Hwange Chapter. 

While the people of Matabeleland should be happy and celebrating the establishment of the two institutions, however, their happiness will be short lived as word has it that ZOU has been instructed to relocate to Bulawayo because they have failed to secure premises to establish the university in Hwange District. 

This has come as a result of the instruction from the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education to relocate the university to other premises and leave the Thomas Coulter Annex premises for Hwange Teachers’ College. 

Ironically and unfairly, when ZOU occupied the premises they were dilapidated and the whole infrastructure was in a sorry state of abandonment. This development has been exacerbated by the overzealous behaviour of the ZOU staff that all but three security guards come from Bulawayo or other provinces and now believe that their prayers to be reunited with their families in Bulawayo have been answered. 

The members of staff have always wanted the ZOU Matabeleland North Provincial campus to return to Bulawayo where it was originally. Their line of arguments is that they were forced to come to Hwange against their own will, Hwange was extremely hot, dusty and remote. 

It was also their submission that people in Matabeleland North did not value education as they preferred going to neighbouring countries like South Africa and Botswana to do menial jobs. Those who remained at home see prospects of a good life in the Colliery Company as general hands or the mighty Zambezi for fishing, hence the university will not get students for enrolment. They also felt cheated and separated from their families in Bulawayo.

This writer is reliably informed that on the day of the relocation some men and women, old enough to be grandparents, and some senior lecturers for that matter, were visibly seen weeping uncontrollably as they could not stomach the reality of going to live in the coal capital, involuntarily. The truth of the matter is that all professors and doctors and other support staff that belonged to ZOU Mat North Provincial Campus at that time refused to come to Hwange and to date the campus has no single doctor or Professor because no one with such high qualifications wants to work there. Worsening the whole pandemonium is the mischievous behaviour of the former Regional Director who was instrumental in taking the university to Matabeleland North who, upon facing the reality of Hwange, he clandestinely applied for a lateral transfer to another province citing health and environmental conditions within a year of his stay. 

Out of thirty members of staff that the provincial university had when it initially came to Hwange, half of that number have successfully transferred to other provinces laterally. ZOU Mat North province is currently left with three lecturers, two seniors and one junior. 

Shortage of lecturers and faculty leaders necessitated the sharing of faculties among the three lecturers and some faculties are given to support staff on acting capacity to avoid overloading lecturers. It is therefore, in this regards that the members of staff are overjoyed to learn that they would be closing the Matabeleland North Provincial campus and going back to the city of kings and queens. 

That as it may, one wonders the wisdom of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education and the leadership of Hwange of replacing a university that has an enrolment of over 700 students to pave way for a teachers’ college with an enrolment of just 150 student teachers? 

Does Hwange now just need teachers above other professionals or it’s a political move by those bent on marginalising Matabeleland North Province that is now playing the “stick and carrot” game, I give you a college, I take the university? Or worse still it’s a tribal agenda by those who are taking up jobs in Hwange on the assumption that people in Matabeleland North are not learned?

Have the people of Hwange resolved to rather have a teachers college than a university? In as much as we want our children in Hwange to be teachers and probably stand a chance to one day be employed in our schools in 10 to fifteen years to come (because the ministry is currently employing those who graduated in 2015), we cannot afford to lose a university to places where there are already congestion of universities. 

What is so worrying about the whole saga is that ZOU is also teaching a Diploma in Education which is equally as competent as that taught at UCE and other colleges and provides similar job opportunities. Why is the Minister not interested in finding an alternative accommodation for ZOU because all are state institutions that drink from the same fiscas rather than telling them to just move out. We, therefore, implore our traditional chiefs, the political leadership in Hwange, parents and pressure groups to open their eyes and see beyond their noses, the machinations being employed to deprive their children of opportunities to employment. The university should not be allowed to go anywhere. It should stay put in Hwange. 

The Ministry should put more structures at Thomas Coulter School to accommodate both the institutions while a proper relocation plan is put in place. After all Thomas Coulter premises are too small for both institutions, especially for the teachers’ college that requires advanced sporting facilities and there is no more land for that. 

Again all the two institutions were allocated land by the Hwange Local Board and indications are, therefore, that they are all not going to be permanently stationed at Thomas Coulter. It seems here ZOU is being portrayed as an institution of less significance compared to a teachers’ college yet it has educated the whole nation. 

The Minister should be very careful not to justify falsehood and misconceptions being perpetrated about ZOU. Our fears are that once ZOU goes back to Bulawayo while we pretend to be blind, dumb and deaf, it will be very difficult or impossible to bring it back to Matabeleland North Province and Hwange in particular. 

Next time you will hear of it being given premises in Tsholotsho. Yes, because ZOU is not peculiar to Hwange district. It is a State university with provincial campuses in all the ten political provinces of Zimbabwe and even beyond. So if the people of Hwange say “no”, the people of Nkayi will say “yes”. 

If Hwange is choking people with smoke and dust or dehydrating them with coal heat, Lupane could be chilling and nearer to perceived comfort zones. In light of that Editor, it is my prayer that the powers that be may see light and find an alternative accommodation that is suitable for the university here in Hwange. 

Meanwhile, if the current staff at ZOU feels it is their right to choose where they want to stay was being infringed, they can resign or continue seeking lateral transfers like their peers have been doing. We don’t want people who only want something which suits them most. “Banoda belibo”. 

Concerned Parent, Hwange