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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
President Mnangagwa yesterday capped 2 897 graduates at Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) and installed Professor Paul Henry Gundani as the institution’s substantive Vice Chancellor.

A distinguished academic, Prof Gundani took over from Professor Francis Mugabe who had been acting since the death of founding Vice Chancellor Professor Primrose Kurasha in 2017.

At a colourful ceremony held in the capital, President Mnangagwa conferred 1 598 undergraduate degrees, 280 Masters degrees and 15 Doctor of Philosophy degrees.

Women constituted the bulk of graduates at 1 630 which was about 56,2 percent against 1 267 men who constituted 43,8 percent.

The Faculty of Education had the highest number of graduates at 1 432, which constituted about 49,4 percent.
Notable graduates included South Sudanese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Deng Boutros Thok who was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy in Conflict Management and Econet Wireless chief executive Mr Douglas Mboweni who was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy in Business Leadership.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said it was high time the country’s education system responded to the needs of industry.

“Remember that as the Second Republic, we are involved in constructing a house. We are involved in building a nation, we are not superficial, we are transforming, we walk the talk,”said Prof Murwira.

“Our problem as a country has never been lack of intelligent people. To the contrary, our problem has been using systems that are not designed to deliver the output that we desire as a nation, our problem has been a configuration problem, so we have fixed it, move with us.”

He said there was need for students to develop appropriate national capabilities anchored on skill, knowledge and consciousness.

“National capabilities enable us to attain the goals of our vision as long as it is anchored on appropriate design of the Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation Science and Technology ecosystem. This is why we have moved from Education 3.0 anchored on teaching research and community service which produces a worker to a design of Education 5.0 that is heritage-based where innovation and industrialisation are the two additionals to make it five,” he said.

He said the education system was going through deep transformation.
“One of the anticipated results of this deep transformation is the study of Zimbabwe programme where we expect you to attract international students into our higher and tertiary education system.

“Our Education 5.0 shall lead us to an internationally competitive higher and tertiary system so we urge you to make this a reality,” he said

Prof Gundani said ZOU had adopted digital transformation early this year in its strategic plan that would mainstream electronic learning.

“The provision of e-learning is not only a pipe-dream as ZOU has already come up with a set of open online courses which will be accredited very soon with the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education. We are going to introduce compulsory courses that will all be online and include entrepreneurship, ethics and digital literacy,” said Prof Gundani.

He said the Fourth Industrial Revolution was a low-hanging fruit which the Zimbabwe economy could benefit from.
“There is need to continuously review of the courses in keeping with the digital revolution. Such courses as communication and digital literacy need to be accessed online because acquiring digital access is no longer an option but an imperative,” said Prof Gundani.