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NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Letters: Zanu PF’s undying love for lies

Opinion & Analysis
LIES and threats have now become the order of the day for the President Emmerson Mnangagwa-led government.

Zanu PF’s undying love for lies LIES and threats have now become the order of the day for the President Emmerson Mnangagwa-led government.

Since the inception of the new dispensation in 2017, Zimbabweans have been subjected to threats, lies and propaganda.

Not a day passes by without  the issuance of threats, lies and propaganda by government.

The rate at which the current crop of ministers is surviving on lies is astonishing.

This will surely come back to haunt them one of these days. The list of  ministers  who have turned out to be pathetic liars and propagandist is endless.

Only last week, the Primary and Secondary Education ministry reported that 1 200 schools were built in Zimbabwe between 2017 and 2021.

There are 1 460 days in four years. It would mean that  one school was opened every single day. Or that the government constructed an average of 25 schools every month. Is that possible?

One would expect the government to list the completed schools giving details such as their geographical location so that its story can be believable.

The Primary and Secondary Education ministry is not alone in all this, with Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, Information and Publicity minister Monica Mutsvangwa and Kazembe Kazembe of Home Affairs, among some of the new dispensation’s pathological liars.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya’s utterances on bond notes  will remain a joke of the century.

For how long will Mnangagwa and his subordinates last, considering that people now know them in and out.

Recently, prices of basic commodities were hiked manifold and the government had the audacity to tell the nation that the business community was on a mission to remove it through wanton price increases.

No, comrades, that is not it. You are the biggest culprits. Stop hiding behind the finger.-Mai Ruru

Govt must liberalise airwaves for development A FREE Press is essential in holding those in power accountable.

The Press is a tool that can be used in connecting and building nations.

It is the Press which exposed Willowgate, Salarygate, Chiadzwagate and recently the Pomonagate, hence the media is a powerful tool that can be used to combat corruption.

Journalists have done a lot of work around exposing human rights violations from Gukurahundi, the violent land reform, the 2008 sham election run-off, events of August 1, 2018 and those of January 2019.

However, we lament the curtailing of a free Press by the failed Zanu PF government. On several occasions, journalists have been thrown in jail after exposing corruption. Draconian laws have enacted.

The Zanu PF government is rushing the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill for the same reasons.

There are attempts to capture and corrupt the media, a systematic effort to decimate diverse views, opinion and freedom of expression.

The airwaves are a monopoly of the State and those linked to it.

We believe there is need for independent community radio stations to help educate the communities they service. A community radio station in Manicaland would have done a lot in educating the people around Cyclone Idai, as an example.

We salute all the journalists who continue to do their work under adverse conditions and in the face of hostility.-Muzokomba villager

Revisiting Zim’s opaque education system THERE has been wide debate on the relevance of some academic courses being offered at Zimbabwe’s institutions of learning to today’s world needs.

The general argument on the streets is that some subjects and courses being undertaken both at secondary and tertiary levels are useless, rendering most Zimbabwean graduates uncompetitive on the global job market.

With surging demand for education in Zimbabwe, there has also been a complementing rise in the number of learning institutions.

Unfortunately, the degree programmes that are being offered at some universities and colleges are obsolete and lack key entrepreneurship and human development skills.

For example, there are some universities which are still offering a Bachelor of Arts (General) degree.

Where will a graduate of  such a programme fit? Will they become a teacher?

In 2020, Zimbabwe adopted Education 5.0. Zimbabwe’s State universities’ traditional tripartite mandate was on teaching, research and community service, but it has been revised to align itself to the urgent national ambition to attain middle-income status by year 2030.

It now demands that higher and tertiary institutions should not only concentrate on teaching, research and community service, but innovate and industrialise Zimbabwe.

This hinges on institutions that churn out critical thinkers, but some of these programmes leave a lot to be desired.

Entrepreneurial skills are crucial to economic growth, especially in economically-distressed countries like Zimbabwe where there is a high unemployment rate and highly informal economy.

Given the above, there is a need for the government and universities to re-evaluate and reconfigure the whole education system so that it meets the needs and demands of the global job market.

There is need to infuse both the practical and theoretical aspects in order to equip students with necessary and requisite skills needed in an ever-changing world.-Chief Chiduku

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