The ManicaPost
Editor’s Musings
Wendy Nyakurerwa- Matinde
While knowledge is power, it can be even more powerful when that knowledge is turned into skills that are required to drive an economy.
All the reading one does is best classified as entertainment if it does not translate into sharpened skills and innovativeness.
With a literacy rate of 94 percent – one of the highest in the world and the highest in Africa — Zimbabwe has a serious skills deficit averaging 62 percent.
For a nation that reads and writes so well, the average national skills level is a mere 38 percent, with some sectors having a skills gap of up to 95 percent.
In other words, the nation is extremely knowledgeable but when it comes to converting that knowledge into useful skills on how to get things done and grow the national economy, we find the going tough.
This shows a major misalignment between industry and the local education system — which has been producing graduates who do not match the desired levels of innovation to drive the economy.
Crucially, the country has a serious shortage of skills in the medicine, engineering and agricultural sectors — among others — and yet these are the key drivers of the economy.
According to a Government commissioned national skills audit conducted in 2017, the medical and health sciences cluster has a skills deficit of 95 percent.
In an era where the world’s economy is in the intensive care unit due to Covid-19, with all hope cast on a robust health system that will ensure a healthy populace to work on the economy, the fact that the country only has five percent of the required skills in the medical sector is disturbing.
Could it be the reason why so many of our people have had to die before amassing enough funds to cover medical bills for heart transplants and other such delicate procedures in India?
But that’s not all we have to worry about.
With only six percent of the required skills available in the science sector, the engineering and technology skills cluster has a skills deficit of 93,57 percent.
This is coming at a time when the nation is taking off for a major industrialisation and urbanisation drive as the country works towards attaining upper middle income status in the next decade.
In science and technology, there are therefore vast economic opportunities that are not being fully exploited due to the lack of skills.
The agricultural sector, which is the backbone of the national economy, enjoys only 12 percent of the required skills and has a skills deficit of 88 percent.
These statistics are particularly worrisome when considering that agricultural activities provide employment and income for 60 percent of the population, supplies 60 percent of the raw materials required by the industrial sector and contributes 40 percent of total export earnings.
Most of the country’s farmers are therefore unskilled and their efforts could be reaping more rewards and spurring the country forward if they had the requisite skills.
Due to this disconnect between the country’s skills and literacy rate, Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira is a concerned man — and rightly so.
From the look of things, it appears like we are shooting in the dark.
Our children are paying hefty tuitions and wearing very expensive uniforms to school in an investment that is supposed to translate into various practical skills and national economic development.
The learning institutions — from kindergarten to tertiary — have been letting us down in terms of equipping the students with practical skills.
Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. If students are to thrive in their 21st-century careers, then creative thinking holds the highest currency.
This is why through the Education 5.0 curriculum, the Government is now taking into account new components of literacy that include solution fluency and creativity fluency, among other elements.
Under Education 5.0, Zimbabwe’s education system is now focusing on problem-solving and creating value from the knowledge acquired by tertiary students to promote industrialisation and modernisation through industrial parks and innovation hubs.
As we acquire knowledge and learn new things, it is crucial to always remember that knowledge is power only if we apply it.
We have two options — remaining in the dinosaur age as learned professors or absorbing all that information and innovatively turning it into solutions for our needs.
Till next week, let’s chew the cud.
