How Zimbabwe intends to transform its institutions of higher learning

HON. SEN. GUMPO:  Thank you Madam President.  My question is directed to the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.  In the past, there was a noticeable number of students in agriculture on attachment in the fields but of late, it seems to be quiet.  What has happened?

THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA):  Thank you Hon. Madam President and I wish to thank the Hon. Senator for the question about agriculture education.  We are refocusing our education so that it becomes practical.  We should not talk about crops only.  We should talk about them and grow them at the same time.  We should not talk about cattle only.  We should talk about cattle and grow them.  We should not talk about chickens.  We should talk about them and grow the chickens as well.

We are aware that our Education 3.0 design was mainly about teaching, research and workshops, which means there was no time that was taken memorising things rather than being in the field.  Our new design of education will increase the number of students who will touch the soil, plant in the soil, touch cattle dung and grow cattle.  We expect that the new design as we go forward will make people love soil, love production and love livestock.  Like I was saying, our capabilities for example if you go today to Chinhoyi University of Technology, we have started with a dairy project of 65 cows that we bought during COVID and 50 of them are already in calf, which means we are starting a dairy call there for our students and we expect them to be able to be practical.

We are starting a complete beef industry where we are producing pedigree bull semen for farmers to make sure that production happens across and that the students are participating in that.  The students are doing very well.  If you go to Chinhoyi – I am using that example because we graduated last week, you will see that they have 300 hectares of wheat in the fields.  This is what we are expecting as we go forward. If you go to the University of Zimbabwe today, that farm this year produced 2000 tonnes of soya beans, 3500 tonnes of maize and also they have got about 40 hectares of onions in the fields – [HON. SENATORS:  Hear, hear.] –  which basically is telling about the refocus of our people to a real education. A real education is not seen by what you say, it is seen by food, industries, work and jobs.  So we believe that as we go forward, you will see more students in the field.  You will see them touching the soil, loving water and loving plants.

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