Be your own employers, graduates told

Graduates now have the opportunity to start new industries and companies through the Government's graduate employment creation and development programme and should shake off the attitude that they need to be employed.

Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Professor Amon Murwira in said this in a speech read on his behalf by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Professor Fanuel Tagwira, during the 32nd Gweru Polytechnic graduation and prize-giving ceremony last Friday.

He said under the programme, graduates will be equipped with appropriate entrepreneurial aptitudes and competencies to become job creators.

The graduates should embrace the programme by coming up with bankable ideas that will culminate in job creation.

A total of 585 graduated with diplomas and certificates issued by the Higher Education Examinations Council (Hexco) in conjunction with the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) during the colourful ceremony.

Of these 62 percent were female and 38 percent male.

"Gone are the days of job seeking, once you finish college. Once you have acquired the requisite skills in a particular trade, don't wait for anyone. Go and use those skills to produce goods and services," said Prof Murwira.

"We would like to see all the graduates of Gweru Polytechnic being helped to form start-up companies. Let us get rid of the colonial mentality where we were designed to work for someone."

Prof Murwira said Government is looking forward to seeing a number of consortiums and business units created by graduates and contribute to the country's industrialisation and modernisation agenda in line with Vision 2030.

"These are graduates who don't simply wait for someone to create employment for them, but take the initiative to generate employment.

"This is our new education system with five missions, teaching, research, community service, innovation and industrialisation with a Heritage bias and we code name this, Heritage Based Education 5.0," he said.

"No one will come and build Zimbabwe. Nyika Inovakwa nevene vayo/ Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi balo. This is the reason why the President started the knowledge revolution in our universities and colleges."

Prof Murwira said in its new thrust on education, the Second Republic is focusing on producing the skills and capabilities for propelling Zimbabwe to an upper-middle-income economy by the year 2030.

The minister highlighted the need to build an innovation-led and knowledge-driven economy based on heritage and natural endowments.

"Heritage Based Education 5.0 is a bold statement and Zimbabwe's modernisation and industrialisation champions are Technical and Vocational Institutions like Gweru Polytechnic College. Zimbabwe shall be built by doers and not by people who just talk and do nothing," he said.

"Polytechnic education by nature produces doers capable of producing goods and services. Many developed countries today rely on their polytechnic education to get to where they are. Germany, for example, has benefited tremendously from its apprenticeship programmes and polytechnic education."

Prof Murwira said President Mnangagwa tasked his ministry to come up with the Integrated Skills Expansion Outreach Programme (ISEOP) that puts emphasis on imparting practical skills that ultimately lead to the acquisition of competencies resulting in the production of goods and services.

He said through community engagement, the ISOEP programme shall empower communities by imparting life skills and engaging in economically productive activities hence contributing to national development.

"We would like to commend Gweru Polytechnic for heeding the clarion call by Government to implement ISOEP. We are informed that in April this year, 81 learners from Shurugwi, Kwekwe, Lower Gweru, and Gweru enrolled for the ISEOP," said Prof Murwira.

"This group of learners included some with disabilities. We are leaving no one and no place behind in our TVET education. The trainees received foundational skills in: food preparation, dressmaking, hairdressing, motor mechanics, electrical installations and repairs, computers, and carpentry."

Prof Murwira commended Gweru Polytechnic for continuing to promote the integration of persons with disabilities into mainstream technical and vocational education and training.

"Keep your eyes on the poor and those on the margins of society. They are your conscience, and as you scale the heights of your selected careers, remember that not everyone in our society is as privileged as you are," he said.

Prof Murwira urged the graduates to desist from drugs and substance abuse.

"Do what you can, when you can, to make positive contributions to society as responsible corporate citizens.

"Hold on to the values you have learnt and remember there is no real excellence in this world which can be separated from right living," he said.