Zimbabwe News Update
herald
6 min read
Farirai MachivenyikaSenior ReporterForeign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Professor Amon Murwira, has challenged African universities to introspect on the relevance of the type of education they are offering to the Continent’s development needs.Prof Murwira said this on Wednesday while giving a public lecture at the Universidade Púnguè, in Chimoio, Mozambique, on the transformative role of education, science, and innovation in uplifting African societies through heritage-based education.Prof Murwira challenged prevailing notions of education, urging universities to reflect on whether what they offer truly qualifies as education.“It is not possible to say, ‘I am educated, but I am poor,’” he asserted.
“If education and poverty co-exist, what is being taught is not education, it is poison.”The Minister reiterated that education must translate into food security, health, innovation, dignity, and prosperity.He drew a sharp distinction between training and education, noting that while training imparts functionality, education liberates the mind and empowers creativity.“You can train a dog to jump, but you cannot educate it.
Education is the ability to think, act, and create solutions,” Prof Murwira said.He deconstructed the false dichotomy between science and local knowledge, emphasising that science is not a Western construct but a universal way of knowing, grounded in experimentation, verification, and logic.By equating local knowledge with scientific knowledge, Prof Murwira sought to reclaim Africa’s intellectual confidence, reminding his audience that indigenous methods, technologies, and systems have long met the criteria of scientific reasoning through lived experience and experimentation.He added that digital tools do not replace knowledge systems but accelerate the generation and dissemination of information.The real challenge, he said, lies not in acquiring technology but in organising knowledge for production and human well-being.“The digital world is nothing but mathematics, zero and one, plus and minus.
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