The President of the Senate, Edna Madzongwe, last week told a visiting delegation of MPs from the Australian parliament that Zimbabwean graduates should focus on creating employment rather than working for other people.
She said this after one of the MPs from the delegation of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade from different political parties in Australia, which was led by Joel Fitzgibbon, asked Madzongwe what steps Zimbabwe was taking to create employment for many graduates being churned out of the country’s education system every year.
The Australian MPs had indicated they had heard reports that Zimbabwe’s education system was one of the best in Africa.
“Basically we have a policy where every Zimbabwean child should be educated and should at least go through high school,” said Madzongwe.
“We have achieved over 96% literacy rates and currently we are the highest in Africa in terms of literacy. We are of the view that even though Zimbabwe is currently in the doldrums in as far as our economy is concerned, we are going to do better. We know we have natural resources to work with so that the economy improves.”
She said the government of national unity had somewhat brought in stability and so in as far as job creation was concerned graduates should consider entrepreneurship rather than eyeing formal employment.
Meanwhile, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart told Parliament this week that government had allocated $1,3 million to his ministry for the purchase of more than 50 vehicles to be distributed to district education offices countrywide.
“I hope through the provision of those vehicles we may be able to improve the mobility of district education officers and regional education directors,” Coltart said.
