Students dumping STEM - minister

Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, Godfrey Gandawa has revealed that scores of STEM students are dumping  subjects  under the programme due to crippling shortage of teachers.

According to  Gandawa, shortage of STEM based subject educators is forcing students good in Science subjects taking other subjects.

The government is promoting the science subjects at "A" Level and paying  school fees of students doing the subjects under STEM.

Tertiary institutions have  welcomed the initiative, which is largely going to halt the country's deficiencies with regard to science and technology skills in various facets of the economy.

Said Gandawa  last week at Mutare Teachers college on teachers shortages, "This inadvertently and adversely affects our institutions of higher learning as they will fail to get the required number of scientifically oriented graduates who will drive the industrialisation and modernisation of the country in the long run,"

"They are our future medical doctors, engineers and mechanics and we should not take that away from them and force them to become what had not been in their plans only because we failed to train enough STEM educators for them.

"The country's future is in these students' hands and therefore the need to educate them in their desired fields," added Dr Gandawa.

The solution, he said, was an increase in STEM educator graduates in colleges and universities as it would result in an increase in high schools offering STEM subjects.