Story by Tafara Chikumira
Government public private partnerships continue to transform livelihoods through sponsorship of disadvantaged tertiary students, providing them with startup business opportunities.
The country’s move to join the Forum for African Women Educationalists Zimbabwe (FAWEZ) Mastercard Foundation brings to 10 the number of African countries that are part of the programme which provides various opportunities to young people.
These include sponsorships to pursue their studies in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics subjects (STEM), thereby bridging the skills gap.
The seven-year programme will see over a thousand students being assisted to enter tertiary education with several packages in the offing.
FAWEZI Executive Director, Ms Lydia Madyirapanze noted, “We are working technical and universities. We seek to create a second chance pathway higher tertiary curriculum and bridging curriculum. Our main focus is on STEM and our bias is on girls as we seek to address shortage of STEM skills and deal with poverty through addressing issues of limited access to tertiary education. You will see some students getting bridging cases to get to tertiary education. Others will get sponsorship and we already have a number of vocational training institutions and universities we have partnered with.”
Government has welcomed the development saying it will help in developing its workforce in line with vision 2030.
“Your coming on board is indeed of great relief to us as government. It is our will that we take every student to tertiary education so that we have a strong skills pool as a nation. We are grateful for such initiatives as a ministry,” said a representative of the Zimbabwe Council of Higher Education, Professor Mandizvidza.
A representative of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, Dr Darlington Damba said, “We have seen the challenges of the girl child in the past. We hope their challenges will be reduced following this noble programme. We are happy to partner you on such a programme. The future is indeed bright. Your programme will also help in reducing child pregnancies and save the society at large.”
The FAWEZ programme is in line with the National Development Strategy One cluster on Human Capital Development with focus on improving access to quality, inclusive education and promoting uptake and application of STEM subjects.
