Six outstanding graduands receive the Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa award
Story by Tambaoga Gora
THE Chancellor of Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) President Emmerson Mnangagwa has capped more than three thousand graduands at the institution’s 19th graduation ceremony.
The glamorous event, which was characterised by pomp and fanfare, began after being proclaimed as a graduation ceremony by President Mnangagwa.
Of the total graduands, 24 were conferred with doctorate degrees.
Six outstanding graduands received the Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa award, with two graduands Nyasha Chipapika and Samantha Ngogodo receiving the best overall awards with prize money of one thousand United States dollars, while the other four got 500 United States dollars each.
Nyasha Chipapika described the honour as humbling, while Dr Nelisiwe Karara who designed a water purifier for use in rural areas was equally ecstatic, pledging to empower more women through the skills she acquired.
“It is a great honour to have received a prize from the President. While I will initially look for a job for a start the real dream is to be my employer with time,” said Nyasha.
Dr Karara added, “It’s a great honour from the President. I made a unique innovation with eight components from scratch and one of the uses of the innovation is to purify water in rural areas. My dream is to empower women and encourage them to equip themselves with knowledge despite their gender.”
ZBC Radio News Chief Producer Bengani Ncube was also among the graduands capped at CUT this Friday with President Mnangangwa impressed by the media personality’s work ethic after he received a book prize.
Samuel Sifani who graduated with a creative arts and industrial design degree is determined to carve his niche in the industry.
“I am happy I have graduated. I am a designer and there are many things I can do through art and designing,” he said.
CUT Vice Chancellor Professor David Simbi described the Heritage-Based 5.0 Education Model as a bedrock of academic education which is yielding positive results in the fields of innovation and industrialization.
“The tenets of education 5.0 which has become the bedrock of our education and training continue to yield positive results in the fields of innovation and industrialization. At the present moment we are tirelessly working to establish Zimbabwe’s first Animal embryo technology transfer laboratory and the very first drug discovery and ethnography simulation laboratory,” he said.
Institutions of higher learning are expected to play a pivotal role in the country’s industrialisation drive by creating innovation hubs and churning out students who create employment.
