Story by Tambaoga Gora
AFRICAN countries have been challenged to take a leaf from Zimbabwe’s Education 5.0 model and move away from the colonial education system that was designed to produce a cheap labour force for European companies.
This came out during a public lecture organised by the Chinhoyi University of Technology to commemorate Pan-Africanism.
Professor John Eshun from Takoradi Technical University in Ghana presented a paper titled: “Academia and Pan Africanism – The Nkrumah factor: Achievements, Challenges and the way forward.
The presentation unpacked the journey traversed by celebrated Pan-Africanists, Robert Mugabe and Kwame Nkrumah”, while his compatriot Dr Moses Abnory presented a paper on “university governance in the 21st century Africa”, giving a nod to the heritage-based Education 5.0 Model adopted by Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutions after the inception of the Second Republic.
“Both Mugabe and Nkrumah believed that the key to African unity was the formation of regional organisations such as the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community. Nkrumah being the fulcrum of Pan Africanism a movement that sought to unite the continent and promote African self-resilience, Mugabe was inspired by Nkrumah’s ideas and aspired to continue his legacy by pursuing African unity,” said Professor Eshun.
“Higher education is critical for political and socio-economic development for every nation our education provides a human resource for the public and private sector, the question I want us to ask ourselves is, are we doing that? What kind of human resources are we churning out, are we churning out people who are employee-minded or entrepreneurs,” noted Dr Abnory.
Chinhoyi University of Technology Vice Chancellor Professor David Simbi dealt with the topic; “Independence and dreams of our fathers: what went wrong?”, while Midlands State University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Victor Muzvidziwa gave a summation on “Driving the Pan African Economic Development: Education 5.0.”
“Why is that assistance to Africa comes as food aid, why not give a rod, a hook, a worm and fishing skills? Common wealth allows for easy access to our resources,” Professor Simbi noted.
“There is no doubt that Africa was highly developed long before when Europeans were walking naked. The first universities came from Africa, there was a lot of development if you look at the pyramids. You look at some of the civilisations in Mali we had the first libraries and digital technologies. Architectural designs, engineering designs, Great Zimbabwe,” emphasised Professor Muzvidziwa.
Mashonaland West Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Honourable Mary Mliswa also attended the public lecture which was held under the theme: “Mapping the Pan- African Coordinates of the Continent’s Development Trajectory”.