The Sunday Mail
State universities are undergoing radical transformation, as they are increasingly focusing on research and innovation. The country’s oldest institution of higher learning, the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), is leading the embryonic revolution geared towards formulating home-grown solutions for local problems. Our Senior Reporter LEROY DZENGA (LD) spoke to UZ Vice Chancellor Professor Paul Mapfumo (PM) about changes at the institution.
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LD: We are witnessing a lot of infrastructure development around the University of Zimbabwe, for example, at the main campus and other outposts around the city. Can you outline the background behind these developments?
PM: The major motivation is the national vision.
There is clarity on where the country wants to go.
When it is said that we want to become an upper middle-income economy with a prosperous and empowered society, this means universities get renewed orders to develop the “how” part of realising that national vision.
The second level of clarity is in the National Development Strategy 1, which details key deliverables and articulates how we can contribute as a university.
What the university has done is to take that and interpret it in the form of a strategic plan.
The strategic plan situates the university as a global centre of excellence in research and innovation.
We seek to achieve relevance in our industry, communities, business and commercial sectors.
For the university to deliver that, it has to grow and show that we can walk the talk.
The university has come up with a philosophy — “kuziva, kugona nekuita” — which means showing competence through doing.
We want to show that we have the capability to do beyond just talking or theorising.
LD: How are you financing these projects?
PM: Let me start by talking about ongoing projects.
The projects that are going on now are hinged on three main areas.
The first one is infrastructure that addresses the ambience of the institution so that it has the hallmark of a prime university.
So, we are doing improvements and expanding infrastructure to enhance the Education 5.0 philosophy.
The second part is students’ infrastructure development.
This is also about the ambience I talked about.
We are also doing the innovation and industrialisation part, which is part of the Education 5.0 philosophy.
Crucially, this area represents growth because it is a space that we never used to have.
The third part is showing that Education 5.0 is driven by science, technology and innovation, and can bring solutions to the nation’s challenges.
So, we are building infrastructure that answers that for the benefit of our nation.
I can speak of a few such projects we are doing.
On the national front, UZ is building a super specialist hospital — the University of Zimbabwe Quinary Hospital — which will provide specialist medical services and also engage in research in that field.
The idea is to have the university deliver health services of the highest level and help cut the import bill in terms of medicines, drugs and the actual medical services that people go abroad for.
We are also establishing companies where the UZ is leading other higher education and tertiary institutions to produce new regimes of goods and services.
We are also undertaking the vehicle registration plates project and we have done a masterplan for the new city.
The Tugwi-Mukosi masterplan was also led by UZ.
These are strategic projects where we use our knowledge and capabilities to provide services to build Zimbabwe.
For the students, we are now refurbishing the hostels.
We are refurbishing Manfred Hodson Hostel.
We have embarked on a new student residence project that has a capacity of 2 000 beds to alleviate the shortage of accommodation.
Designs have been done on a new on-campus shopping mall.
We are also undertaking a UZ water augmentation project, where we are drawing water from our industrial park to the main campus to alleviate the water problems at the institution.
We are also looking at our laboratories and workshops.
Recently, President Mnangagwa commissioned our Art, Design and Technology building, which is now functioning as a factory.
We are producing goods.
We started doing personal protective clothing for the health sector and we have gone beyond that.
We are doing a lot more diverse things like protective clothing for the industrial sector, covering regalia for various institutions, and we are still covering, of course, the medical and health fields from that.
The factory has now become a 24-hour operation.
All this is being financed primarily by the Government.
We want to thank our Chancellor, President Mnangagwa. We also want to thank our Minister (of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, Professor Amon Murwira), who is our champion for Education 5.0.
We have also been using our internal funding to do projects.
The finances we are getting from our industrial park, especially the agro side, which is producing a lot of money (both foreign and local currency), are enabling us to buy equipment and pay for labour and materials for infrastructure.
So, we are feeding back into the process.
The sanitiser and PPE (personal protective equipment) plant has generated some significant money.
We have also had well-wishers and private sector partners who are coming to support the growth of the university.
LD: You spoke of the Quinary Hospital, where activity onsite has increased dramatically in recent times. Can you shed more light on the progress of the project?
PM: We have done all the preliminary work that entails clearing the ground before we can start on the buildings.
The building has six main modules: a feto-maternal section, main theatre, renal unit, oncology unit, the administrative unit and the other part is the cardiology section, where things like heart surgery are done.
The idea is to develop a centre for medical tourism.
Our vision is that people in need of specialist treatment should come to Zimbabwe, rather than us sending people out of the country.
That way, the country can save a lot of money.
We are now at a stage where we are doing the concrete work, where they are doing the pillars, foundations and laying the foundations.
LD: Turning to the academic side, some programmes underwent structural adjustments and when these changes were introduced, there was a bit of resistance from the student body. Can you outline the institution’s thinking behind these changes?
PM: The experience has been challenging as we expected.
I was not surprised, because I am an experienced academic and an international researcher.
I have also managed change at other institutions regionally and internationally, so, we are not getting into a territory where we are disturbing things.
The changes are well-designed and futuristic for the benefit of the nation.
Not everyone will get along easily at that level of thinking.
Nobody has seen this before, and people are comfortable on their old turf.
But we had to change the design of our education and UZ had to give leadership.
I was not taken aback.
I still am focused and happy to report that we changed and came up with 405 new programmes.
We are retiring all the old programmes, allowing people who are on those programmes to run their courses and complete them.
But all people who are coming from behind are coming for the new programmes, and I am happy to say that these programmes are oversubscribed.
Some students are dropping their old programmes to take up the new ones.
Because we are a research institution, we function on empirical evidence. We conducted a survey and the students are happy.
I am happy to report that the students are catching the wave faster than their lecturers.
The reason is that some of our lecturers can only function in their comfort zones, but we are taking them along.
We either conscientise them or train them; some get scared and leave.
It is a normal part of academia and we allow them.
Some are joining and we have many applications, and that shows that people have confidence in the new direction.
The experience has been very enriching. It is a privilege and honour to be leading such a process of transformation.
Some of the people who resisted at first are now coming on board and expressing themselves in different ways, saying maybe they had not communicated well.
We are beginning to see that this is quite useful and we allow that sort of dynamic.
We didn’t have all the time to explain to everybody in the last sentence.
It never happens in a transformation. Some will adapt early, others will adapt late, and it is normal.
By and large, the response has been positive.
Remember, we don’t do programmes for lecturers, we do programmes for the main clients — the student, industry, commerce and society.
The lecturers service the programmes, so we employ those who match our vision.
LD: The Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development has been encouraging universities to adopt a business development approach in their operations. How has the university implemented this directive?
PM: As the leader for the Education 5.0 philosophy, we are cementing ourselves towards that direction.
The authorities have allowed us to change programmes, and we are now changing the human capital configuration to make us more innovation-oriented and industrialisation-oriented.
The teaching and learning are now programmatic.
It responds directly to developmental issues at hand.
It answers the developmental needs of the country.
The research and innovation are also programmatic now.
We synchronised that so that the teaching and learning are informed by research and innovation.
This is the reason we have come up with the new structure, where you are seeing now that we are advertising for the pro vice chancellor (research, innovation and industrialisation) and pro vice chancellor (infrastructure development and digitalisation) because we are also moving towards ICT (information and communications technology).
This adds to the pro vice chancellor (administration and academic affairs).
The expansion justifies the three pro vice chancellors to be at the apex of development.
Twitter: @leedzenga
