Source: Zimbabwe Government
Zimbabwe Government Portal – Innovation key to Vision 2030.
Official Government of Zimbabwe Web Portal.
It is well known that Science, Technology and Engineering play an important role in the development of a nation and forms the backbone of industry in developing economies.
Given the increasing importance of the electronics, telecommunications and information communication technology (ICT) industry, the country therefore needs to strengthen its technological base in these areas in order to meet demands of the 21st century.
The Government of Zimbabwe is also critical about the issue.
Through the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, headed by Professor Amos Murirwa the country is making significant strides into adopting Education 5.0 model which seeks to replace the less effective Education 3.0 model.
The 3.0 Model, made up of three core areas — teaching, research and outreach, was inherited from a colonial system which was structured to produce a pool of labourers to service the settler-economy while, in contrast, the new Education 5.0 Model, which ensures production of goods and services, has added two more areas of focus, Innovation and Industrialisation to Teaching, Research and Outreach.
Peter Michael Senge, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founder of the Society for Organisational Learning once wrote that, “Our system of education is trapped in an unspoken irony: The institution with the greatest potential impact on the future is arguably the one most shaped by taken for granted ideas from the past.”.
This means that teaching as a profession and education in general as a system must simply adapt to the new circumstances and changes in role.
“A role which requires a transition from curriculum deliverer to one of learning coach. The new function is to fuel the natural passion and genius of the student, rather than be the protectors of knowledge, forcing students down a pre-constructed road built for the masses.
“Students have to be encouraged to question the knowledge and methods taught by teachers and to find new innovative insights as an individual as well as a collective,” wrote Mattia Rufenacht.
Speaking at a handover of ICT equipment donated to the University of Zimbabwe by Huawei Zimbabwe, Prof Murwira said, “We are in the era of Education 5.0 which takes the Universities to the centre stage of the modernisation and industrialisation agenda as it moves from idea to product.
“Education 3.0 had its constraints as it does not move from idea to product,” says Prof Murwira.
Our educationist, in this technological advanced environment needs to be smarter and ensure that their training programmes respond to the need of creating innovators in the country.
President Mnangagwa outlined a vision of an upper middle-income economy for Zimbabwe by 2030, meaning all the conditions that lead to industrialisation and modernisation have to be fulfilled.
