Education 5.0 records major milestones

Judith Phiri, Business Reporter

Zimbabwe continues to record major milestones in Education 5.0, which aims to shift the education system from a theory-based to a practical-based approach.

Education 5.0 focuses on five key aspects: teaching, research, community service, innovation and industrialisation. It seeks to equip students with the skills and knowledge to solve real-life problems and contribute to the development of the nation.

Speaking on Education 5.0: Promoting Industry-Academia Collaboration to Support Innovation, at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) 2024 ZITF International Business Conference (IBC) on Wednesday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said the state of any nation largely depends on the knowledge of its people and key skills they have.

“If a county has hunger, it means there is no skill to produce food or knowledge to produce the required amounts. Once you know that, you will know how to develop skills and knowledge to produce that food.

“Let us fight poverty by making education dominate the technology trajectory so that we can produce everything that we need as a country. Innovation remains one of the strategic plans of the Government to attain an upper middle-income economy by 2030,” he said.

“The reason people continue importing goods from other countries is that they are not innovative. Innovation cannot be fully accomplished in a day, but it is a direction that should be taken.”

He said the self-consciousness of a nation and its citizens is very important and that is where innovation begins.

Highlighting some of the major milestones of Education 5.0 since its inception, the Minister said several industrial chains have been set up that include the Marula/Mapfura processing and value-addition factory in Mwenezi District, the number plate production factory at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), medical oxygen and industrial gas plant at Feruka in Mutare, the Masawu beneficiation plant that we are making in Muzarabani with the National Biotechnology Authority of Zimbabwe (NBA) and Bindura University of Science Education.

He said as they strengthen innovation hubs and industrial parks they expect to get more innovation developments, as they have been challenged by the President for the country to use its own resources to develop.

“President Mnangagwa has spearheaded the adoption of the Heritage-based Education 5.0 model in the country’s institutions of higher learning to help promote research and innovation in the use of local resources.

“Our heritage are our resources and our people. There are two ways in which you can look at industrialisation but there is only one way it happens. It can come from outside as investment and it can come endogenously as organic development within our country. Either of them, whether it’s coming from outside the country or from inside, industrialisation always comes from innovation,” he added.

Prof Murwira said the country was trying to localise production chains by heritage which meant using local resources at the country’s disposal.

He said by localising production, the country was already substituting imports, but most importantly creating new demands that would make importation of some of the things necessary.