Sukoluhle Ndlovu Midlands Correspondent
There has been a 10 percent increase in enrolment at tertiary institutions after Government scrapped Ordinary Level Mathematics as an entry requirement for 30 courses that they offer early this year, a Cabinet minister has said.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said more students without Ordinary Level Mathematics had enrolled in tertiary institutions countrywide.

He said tertiary institutions were given the green light to recruit students without demanding specific subjects such as Mathematics and English as long as the programmes on offer do not require those subjects.

“What we have seen is an increase of enrolment in these areas (polytechnics) where enrolment was going down. In actual fact, we have an average of 10 percent increase in enrolment. Enrolment had drastically decreased following the introduction of Ordinary Level Mathematics as an entry requirement for all courses in 2016,” he said.

“When Ordinary Level Mathematics was introduced as a requirement for all courses, the enrolment percentage decreased massively.

‘‘What this meant was disciplines like hotel and catering, arts and designing were becoming empty because everyone with Ordinary Level Mathematics was going to study engineering. So we were killing some of the area of study but our thrust is for inclusive education.”

He said, for instance, making Mathematics a requirement for a student intending to study drama was not fair.

Prof Murwira said there was a need for tertiary institutions to recognise different types of talents in academic circles.

“We are a team, everybody plays a different part so that we score and the team wins.

‘‘Imagine a person with 10 Ordinary Level subjects but doesn’t have Mathematics, can we then conclude to say that person is dull? Can we deny that person entry into a college? No,” he said.

He said there must be academic freedom in institutions of higher and tertiary education.

Government in 2016 issued a circular addressed to the Higher Education Examination Council (Hexco) directing that students without Mathematics should not be allowed to register for examinations.

This resulted in a number of students failing to write their examinations and tertiary institutions.

The directive also jolted tertiary institutions that saw reduced enrolment figures.

However, soon after the new Government was formed in November last year, the tertiary institutions started making submissions to their parent ministry to review the entry qualifications as enrolment was also going down.

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