The Sunday Mail
Dr Godfrey Gandawa
Zimbabwe must increase the number of A-Level students who will take up science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in preparation for their entry into university education.
The purpose of this article is to unpack the vision behind the 2016 A-Level STEM Initiative. It will also seek to address some of the concerns raised by stakeholders in respect of various aspects of the initiative. As a new initiative in Zimbabwe, there are bound to be fears of the unknown as well as grey areas that require clarification as the initiative is rolled out.
Through the exchange of views and the sharing of information on the initiative, both the implementers, beneficiaries, stakeholders and mere observers and critics, will have the opportunity to learn one or two things useful in the interest of the nation. It is in the public interest that I also point out from the outset that the concept of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is not new in the world.
By its nature, the concept is global, generic and not an intellectual property owned by any country or organisation. Some countries embraced STEM earlier than others, Zimbabwe being one of the latest countries to embrace it.
This background explains why there are many genuine questions and misconceptions, or deliberate attempts to sell distortions, or even attempts to instill unfounded fear into the hearts and minds of innocent Zimbabwean all out of malice and/or ignorance.
Policy formulation is the preserve of Government whereas the crafting of initiatives to implement Government policy is the domain of Ministries, Government departments and State-owned agencies. In recent years Government came up with two key complimentary policy frameworks, namely, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) and the policy on industrialisation. Each Ministry and Government agency is, therefore, tasked with the responsibility to come up with pragmatic initiatives to implement the two Government policies.
The Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development chose to implement these two policies through the STEM initiative, among other initiatives. Naturally, because of the power the initiative wields to unlock socio-economic value and industrialisation, the STEM initiative has attracted intense interest never seen before in recent years. For that, I sincerely wish to thank its critics and supporters as that helps the Ministry to see things from different perspectives and helpful in the implementation of the initiative.
Nonetheless, we need to realise that the wheels of time are moving on and will never wait for those whose choice, even in the fullness of time, is procrastination against the tide of opportunities while feeding on the false hope that one day success of any historical magnitude will thrust itself into their hands.
In fact, history is not known for favouring with historical significance those whose choice is to wait in space and time until everything else has fallen into its rightful place before they respond to their historical obligation and call of duty. Invariably, nothing falls into the right place of its own volition but everything has to be placed where they should be when opportunities arise. Zimbabwe must take a cue from its leader who demonstrates timeless wisdom when rolling out visions of immense proportions that will benefit Africa and its future generations.
It is a scientific given that Africa, Zimbabwe included, will not experience any form of industrialisation as long as it continues to drift at a tangent in respect of the drivers of this socio-economic phenomenon. It takes insights of great proportions to peep through the windows of life and to behold in their abundance, opportunities that must be grabbed today to unlock doors to a prosperous future.
Thus, the President’s vision is to see the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, not only uncovering unique insights into our future and unveil the enormous opportunities that lie ahead of this great nation’s generations to come, but to also exploit them to the fullest without any excuses. To this end, the ZimAsset economic blueprint and the country’s industrialisation policy must find substance in the initiatives emanating from Government Ministries and state agencies.
Where Government Ministries go into deep slumber, the nation must not expect to hear or see any meaningful initiatives to guide the implementation of Government policy. In our case, the Ministry, its institutions of higher learning (IHL), and State enterprises have decided to cast their headlights into the future rather than concentrating on the past and the here and now.
The Ministry has resolved to overcome the curse, the debilitating obsession of unproductive analytics without proffering useful options to our life’s challenges. Our Ministry and its State institutions, has realised that we do not have the luxury of striding into unproductive political dances that risk the very existence of our nationhood. The time to embrace STEM is now or never. Seen in its proper context, the STEM initiative is a scientific revolution and a solid bedrock for the country’s industrialisation!
In short, STEM is a national strategy to achieve defined national socio-economic goals as defined in the ZimAsset economic blueprint and the country’s industrialisation policy. There is no smarter way of seeking to achieve these goals without coming up with a strategic human capital development plan as realistic and practical as the STEM initiative.
There shouldn’t be any doubt that STEM subjects are the headlights for this country’s future economic prosperity. With STEM, our nation stands to unlock the power with which to engineer the master code of the jobs of the future. A critical look at our education system shows that Zimbabwe has hitherto been held hostage to its own academic dynamics and architecture. The missing link has always been STEM which is set to grant the country an industrial breakthrough of a revolutionary magnitude.
Our nation must, therefore, never be distracted from the truth and essence of this initiative. Politics aside, the STEM initiative is about the rolling out of sciences and technology a reality we cannot ignore at the mere persuasion of social and economic commentators of a yesteryear mindset.
Why must we focus on the implementation of the STEM Initiative? Today’s change is cruising on the bleeding edge of technology fostered by scientific research and development (R&D). Countries that have overcome extreme poverty, massive disease burdens, unemployment, political turmoil and social disorientation, have embraced STEM without excuses.
Some historically poor nations, victims of the systematic plundering of their natural resources by foreign-based transnational conglomerates, have effectively halted, and even reversed, such economic bleeding through STEM-based industrialisation and not through mere political rhetoric. The Asian Tigers are a case in point. Thus, the STEM Initiative entails the harnessing of our national talent and potential to ride on the back of hard sciences and technology to bring to a halt the devastating effects of years of economic stagnation.
For starters, at A-Level, STEM means that we are focusing on two of the STEM components, namely, the S and the M, that is, the Sciences (Physics, Biology and Chemistry) and the M (Mathematics). This is a deliberate and strategic move. The S and the M of STEM are the raw material for the T and E in later years at university level. The T is the technology and the E is the engineering components of STEM.
Only those students who get the S and the M as part of their preparation for university education will be sufficiently prepared to take up future jobs in the world of T and the E. Therefore, countries that strategically plan to have scientifically minded citizens with visions that drive them towards innovation and technological creativity, must not hesitate to invest in the S and M of their young generations. This is the choice that our Government has taken at this stage. Creating the foundation for a culture of creativity, innovativeness and critical thinking.
Zimbabwe must increase the number of A-Level students who will take up science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in preparation for their entry into university education. Therefore, by targeting O-Level graduates for the STEM Initiative, Government encourages the young people at a critical decision-making point to decide to take up STEM subjects.
The aim is to drive higher the numbers of students taking up STEM subjects more than those of previous years. This is by no means to say arts and commercial subjects are of a lesser importance. No. It is about addressing a historical imbalance where the majority of university graduates has always been heavily skewed towards arts and commercial subjects. It is, therefore, prudent as a condition precedent to industrialisation, to deliberately decide to focus on stemitisation of the education system beginning with the sciences proper for these obvious reasons.
STEM is more than just the mere teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Rather, it is the systematic unpacking and application of these knowledge bodies premised on scientific principles underlying the systematic resolution of human’s everyday life problems, needs, and wants.
Scientific and technological advances trend towards a future where those who ignore STEM will, indeed, run out of wealth of relevant knowledge, skills and natural resources before they themselves run out of life, both personal and societal (Ed. Wood. D. W., London Futurists, 2014).
The essence of STEM lies in the creation and making them accessible to the wider population, of advanced scientific and technological opportunities and linking the frontiers of the Internet of Things (IoT) through funded entrepreneurship for Zimbabwe’s future generations of wealth creators. STEM is the hot blood of ZimAsset and with it, Zimbabwe will re-write its future. Achievement of ZimAsset is not only interconnected to but is heavily dependent on the country’s ability to embrace and unpack the intrinsic value of an STEM-driven system of education. New industries will evolve from the STEM skilled future citizens of this country. The STEM Initiative is not to solve today’s problems now but planning for the human capital for industrialisation.
As Zimbabwe’s higher and tertiary education is stemitised, IHL must also revamp their curricula, a process under way. With STEM, our country’s education system is set to embark on an irreversible and fundamental revolution that will forever change the course of our history. By 2021, IHL should start producing STEM graduates. From that period into 2025 and beyond, our society must anticipate transformational progress in the application of science and technology in industry and commerce.
Beyond 2030 every aspect of this country will be viewed through scientific lens. Politicians will cease to win elections on the basis of flowery but false language. They will need to be scientifically competent to remain relevant. It will call for scientific political thinking to address socio-economic problems faced by their constituencies. Sport, art and culture will be scientifically driven. Health systems will become evidence-based and individualised rather than the current prescriptive and generic nature they currently are.
Agricultural and farming practices will all be based on scientific methodologies. Commerce and industry will be driven by science, technology and the power of the computer and the signs are already evident. Export earnings will be premised on STEM-driven investments and industrialisation. Proponents of doom are quick to say, “we can’t get there”.
The fact that we are not yet there doesn’t mean that fate has forever condemned us to never reach there. If we set our sights there and mobilise all our collective wisdom, talent and commitment, we will be surprised by our own victory when we find ourselves there.
Then, Zimbabwe will stand up and begin to be counted on the global arena as an emerging force in scientific R&D, innovation as well as technological advances. Our education system will pursue, among others, the deepening of cloud computing, big data analytics, robotics, synthetic biology, pharmacogenetics, nanotechnology, renewable energy systems, 3 and 4D printing technologies, and artificial intelligence, towards the realisation of the ZimAsset vision and beyond. New types of jobs are going to emerge when access to faster and cheap data becomes a reality. According to Frey (2014), 60 percent of the jobs in 10 years from now haven’t been created yet. A strategic approach to that task is a requirement.
The STEM Initiative is neither a project for financial assistance nor is it just about predicting the future of jobs in Zimbabwe. It is a human capital development strategy that underpins economic development of the nation. It is also everything about our understanding of the driving forces that will shape Zimbabwe’s future. It unravels the very forces behind the trends and subtle nuances that can be leveraged to implement ZimAsset. The STEM initiative disentangles far-reaching implications for both the people directly affected in the IHL, research centres, industry as well as others further down the technological food chain (Frey, 2014).
The historical obligation of this generation is to open up opportunities (and not to shut them out) for the future generations to connect and communicate with their future. Today’s generation is called upon to give future generations hope and the much-needed life’s toolkit (i.e. the vision, skills and confidence) with which to boldly re-engineer their purpose of existence so as to gain some measure of control over their God-given resources, future, and destiny.
The STEM Initiative’s goal is to create a dynamic future for Zimbabwe by creating a critical mass of scientific mindsets that are also empowered to create industries and markets of the future. The success of this Initiative will be measured against the quality scientific thinkers who will passionately create new technologies, future jobs, new industries, and practical solutions to current and upcoming problems. These are the cadres who will embrace science and technology into their cultural DNA to raise the national flag with pride among other nations of the global village.
Until now, Zimbabwe’s education system has not been exploited to bridge the gap between what science and technology can do for humanity and how current and future generations should respond to that change. Through STEM-induced change, disruptive technologies and technological creativity will transform Zimbabwe’s economic model. Traditional business models and work patterns will shift towards flexible jobs, wireless, immersive and digital platforms. Ten years from now, Zimbabwe’s workforce will be restructured. The demand for STEM skills will rise exponentially. Likewise, there is going to be increased demand for high quality of technology-savvy graduates from IHL.
Upon realising this indisputable fact and need, the Government through the Ministry moved to install the High Performance Computing (HPC) system at the University of Zimbabwe. This is a supercomputer with a high-level computational capacity that creates some of the most advanced scientific research works as well as advanced networking for universities at global level.
This development is a huge feat that builds the required capacity for advanced and cutting-edge R&D for STEM students at university level. As the Ministry builds this advanced digital platform for R&D, manufacturing, molecular modelling, computational sciences and many other capabilities, opportunities for the STEM students are also being created. By the time they get to university, the current STEM students will not be strangers to hi-tech and bleeding-edge technologies of a knowledge economy.
Ten years from now, the country’s industrial productivity and export dynamics will positively shift in our favour, driven by STEM-induced value addition, beneficiation, and industrialisation. Downstream employment opportunities will be created in all the sectors of the economy. The STEM initiative will indeed lead Zimbabwe along paths of economic transformation, ushering in a new economic model. Then the question will cease to be that of employment creation, but one of the quality of jobs. Ample evidence will be there about Zimbabwe’s success in creating adequate income and wealth for an empowered citizenry.
The STEM initiative is a unique opportunity for Zimbabwe to change the course of her history towards a future of hope and dignity. The difference between yesterday, today and the future is a function of STEM. Cultures across the globe will not offer any meaningful resistance to change to retain their DNA, not even in the short run as the STEM revolution conquers this and other planets elsewhere.
There is no profession that will escape the clutch of science and technology as the world is fast surrendering to the Internet of Things. The future lawyer is one who will lead scientific evidence, arguing cybercrimes, crimes committed with virtual transactions and through manipulation of artificial intelligence. Ten years into the future, the courts of law will favour attorneys who will successfully conduct legal interpretation in virtual courts of law for the inhabitants of virtual communities.
Scientific evidence like human identification and biometric techniques will dominate the courts of law. Judges will be called to define justice and equity in the context intrusive technologies dominant in future legal environments. The future medical doctor is one who will conduct real-time remote diagnosis using the power of telemedicine, virtual treatment and cloud-based surgical procedures. The future banker is one who will be an expert in the application of social media platforms, e-commerce, and virtual transactions crucial in the delivery of amorphous cloud-based banking solutions to the complex needs of blurred and virtual market segments.
Future architects will be those who will master 4D printing and nano-materials manipulation technologies applicable in the built environment inspired by nature and advanced nanotechnologies. Successful farmers will be those in the enterprise of harnessing and taming gene pools in their diversity to combat diseases, low yields, and perennial adverse climatic phenomena like the El Niño factor, hunger and starvation. The future pilot is one who will master real-time remote controlled flying and the aerodynamics of drones.
There will be an explosion of possibilities for those who will embrace virtual 3D and 4D presence, real-time cloud access and real-time work in the cloud. Successful teachers and learners are those who will be able to learn and de-learn complex sets of knowledge and skills at high velocity depending on their mastery of eye-tracking and object-embedded intelligence technologies. Life will favour digital natives while the curse of STEM will quickly ravage those unfriendly to science and to emerging technologies. Those resistant to the development of survival skills critical for knowledge-based economies will quickly meet their fate in the same manner as the dinosaur. No doubt, STEM will define visions of nations and individuals whose brilliant feats will forever remain etched in the annals of history.
STEM and the Concept of
Blended Learning
Blended Learning is the creation and delivery of a formal education system in which students are given learning exposure whereby both content and instruction are delivered via digital and online media. In the process, the learners have some control over time, place, path, or the pace of learning.
As it matures, blended learning must, at national level, display a seamless alignment of components of the education system, from Early Childhood Development (ECD) up to university level.
One level speaks to the other with predominantly digital or computer-based skills increasingly taking center stage. It is a given that classroom learning becomes the centerpiece of the education system. Internet connectivity and the gradual increase in the use of electronic and computerized gadgets for teaching and learning purposes assumes a vital position within the learning environment. Learners get to master how to manipulate computer systems and to maneuver their way into and around virtual learning ecosystems. They are taught how to become creative, innovative and scientifically inquisitive.
From that explanation, it becomes as plain as daylight that with his schools computerisation programme, the President envisioned blended learning well ahead of most of the people in this country. On the other hand, in 2013 the President merged two Ministries of Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education and that of Science and Technology Development to create the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development.
The question is: What was in the President’s mind when he initiated the schools computerisation programme? First, he understood that the future of education and life would virtually depend on the power of the computer. That was a futuristic approach to education and to the empowerment of future generations. Second, it was crystal clear in his mind that the realisation of value from an education system,would require the merging of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education and that of Science and Technology Development. Meaningful translation of science and technology would only occur where the merged ministry would strategically plan R&D, human capital development and the deepening of hard sciences under a common policy environment.
Currently, the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Developmentis engaging its sister ministry, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, to work out one system of education from ECD to university level. It was out of that noble vision and foresight that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education embarked on a comprehensive curriculum review. That exercise culminated in what that Ministry now championsas STEM.
That initiative, I would also call hybrid or blended learning, seeks to equip children with 21st Century skills from an early age in much the same as the STEM initiative focuses at those wishing to advance to university education. In other words, the new Primary and Secondary Education curriculum should be supported, applauded and embraced because it constitutes one of the most progressive developments to happen in this country. Failure to recognise this positive development condemns the whole nation to perpetual circles of educational journeys to nowhere. Every futuristic mind should see that the new Primary and Secondary Education curriculum lays a solid foundation for STEM education in later years.
The discussion above indicates that both the Ministries are at the stage where their visions are being unpacked guided by the President’s guiding pillars and milestones, especially the schools computerisation programme. With computers in the schools, e-learning must take root. As such, e-learning sets the stage for blended learning. I believe that none of the two Ministries is under any illusion to think that the conditions for full scale blended learning have since been achieved. Far from it. In fact, there awaits us enormous work ahead of the two Ministries.
Stakeholders of the STEM initiative are right in arguing that there exist huge gaps between the ideal and the actual conditions for implementing STEM. For example, well equipped science laboratories remain in dire shortage across the secondary education system as well as at tertiary and university levels. Financial resources to provide reagents, apparatus and proper laboratories are critically unavailable. Our stakeholders are also right in pointing out that there is a shortage of science teachers which militates against the implementation of a STEM education in Zimbabwe.
Some have gone as far as stating as fact that Zimdef does not have the capacity to sustain such an initiative. Others have also averred that the failure to take the STEM students through university education will have been a waste of resources. Others have also reasoned that it is not worthwhile investing in STEM students at all because the economy won’t absorb them when they graduate and that Zimbabwe will just be training for other countries with better opportunities for STEM graduates.
According to these arguments, this initiative will not help Zimbabwe at all. There could still be a battery of other shortcomings our stakeholders and critics are yet to raise against the STEM initiative. Our position is to encourage positive discussion around this issue. We remain open to any valuable input as we work on this initiative which we believe will change the fortunes of this country.
However, Zimbabwe must know that the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development had a thorough analysis of the pros and cons of this chosen initiative.
As a Ministry, we conducted a clinical diagnosis of our education system’s anatomy to objectively identify the country’s challenges leading to the choice of the prescription.
While we admit that there are gaps which exist in this regard, we emphatically point that the direction taken by the two ministries is the best at this juncture.
All are welcome to contribute to the noble cause.
All the raised issues are now part of our agenda. The great relief that we have as a Ministry is that the STEM initiative has been embraced by the vast majority of our population across all the walks of life.
It is common cause that STEM education is key in resolving our current and future socio-economic challenges. We shall not pretend that the journey shall be one without difficulties.
The Ministry is busy identifying strategic options for unlocking financial resources to build and capacitate laboratories for the STEM students at A-Level and in universities.
The Ministry has also increased the number of students in the country’s teachers training colleges. Over and above those in teachers’ colleges like Belvedere, Government is running a science teachers’ training programme at Bindura University of Science Education, National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU). The Ministry will recommend to Cabinet incentives aimed at retaining science and maths teachers.
There is also serious consideration on the part of Government to support the STEM students through their university education. A policy recommendation is being worked out with this in mind.
Zimdef is mandated to provide resources for skilled human capital development. The Ministry has used it to initiate the STEM revolution, with a clear view that once it has taken off the ground, more diverse and sustainable sources of funding for the STEM revolution will be mobilised.
Nonetheless, Zimdef does have the capacity, as it has already demonstrated, to sustain the early stages of the revolution while other avenues are being explored.
We are very fortunate as a nation that we still have remnants of State enterprises like Zimdef that are still capable of meeting their mandate.
Given the constraints facing our fiscus, Government is working on other funding option to assist Zimdef in the short-to-medium terms.
It is regrettable that there are some stakeholders who argue for the complete abandonment of the STEM initiative on the grounds of unemployment or some stakeholders want to compare our implementation with that of the developed world countries like US, surely our economics are different hence the different approaches. We believe the challenges of unemployment are not permanent.
It can be argued that these challenges are accentuated by the fact that the country did not take up a stemitised education system in the first place.
In any case, that argument is fatalistic by its nature. Does it mean that we should close all our schools, colleges and universities simply because there is unemployment today? No. We can’t. If we do not equip the future generations with STEM education, what option do we have?
We must continue training and developing our human capital base, firstly, in preparation for an economic turnaround in future, and secondly, to create a critical mass of stemitised graduates who are capable of creating future industries of the digital era.
Dr Godfrey Gandawa is the Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development and can be contacted on [email protected]
