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Herald Reporter

Innovation has become a key driver of national development, making it imperative for developing nations such as Zimbabwe to invest in skills development with a bias towards technology, Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere has said.

He said this last week while officially opening TelOne’s Impact Learning, an online e-learning platform expected to improve the capacity of its already existing Centre for Learning.

“Innovation is a key driver to the development of nations,” said Dr Muswere.

“With the advent of the Fourth Industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), it has become apparent that a developing nation has to invest in skills development with a bias towards innovative skills. It is not enough, however, to provide skilled manpower to the industry, but it is a requirement to introduce innovative products and services to the industry.

“TelOne has led the innovation drive by developing this e-learning platform, which is already operational at the TelOne Centre for Learning to initiate for both undergraduate students and corporate training departments, who use the platform to conduct professional business training sessions.

“This is a move in the right direction,” said Minister Muswere.

TelOne managing director Dr Chipo Mtasa said the e-learning platform was part of a long-term strategy.

“It is interesting to note that as part of our vision, we had a plan for the digitisation of TelOne Centre for Learning.

“The first part of the digitisation process was the development of an e-learning platform to allow our students to be able to learn online.

“The digitisation of TCFL had been initiated with the e-learning platform Impact Learning already in place.

“The system became handy as our lecturers were able to migrate their training from physical classroom to the virtual classes on Impact Learning platform.”

Dr Mtasa said lectures were continued online smoothly, and the system became a tool to replace the physical classroom.

“We have also used the system for our internal staff development and training and it has really worked well to help equip our staff with necessary skills,” Dr Mtasa said.

Across the world, educational institutions have been hit hard by Covid-19, and official figures from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Fund (UNESCO) show that over 160 countries had partially or completely closed schools and universities, affecting over 1,5 billion learners and at least 60,2 million teachers worldwide.

In Zimbabwe, a number of primary, secondary and tertiary schools have resorted to online education to keep students on track with their studies.

Ordinary Level and Advanced Level students, who sat for their June exams, had largely learnt using online platforms in the absence of one-on-one learning since late March when Government resolved to shut down schools to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Schools remain closed and will only reopen when it becomes safe for students and teachers, said the Government.