By Own Correspondent- Higher Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira has clarified that there are no useless or useful degrees.

In an interview with Zimpapers Group Foreign Editor Tendai Manzvanzvike (TM), Murwira (AM) said he never said useless degrees. He said he was referring to remodelling Zimbabwe’s higher and tertiary education system. Murwira said Zimbabweans should be taught to start their own companies instead of being workers. Below is an excerpt of the interview:

TM: Professor Murwira, degree holders are asking: what is a “useless degree”?

AM: First of all, I never said “useless” degrees. It was your headline for purposes of selling the newspaper. There is no list for “useful” and another for “useless degrees”. It’s about the system — whether all your degrees are following what we call the National Qualification Framework.

But let me contextualise the whole issue. There is no investment which we can put in a person through education so that they become useless. We don’t want useless education.

What we’re talking about is that we are remodelling Zimbabwe’s higher and tertiary education system.

TM: What does it mean?

AM: I have always maintained that in the past we used to sit at an indaba.

The responsibility of an indaba was to teach people to do something. You could be taught to make a hoe or an axe.

After several indaba sessions, you would then emerge an expert. So, universities or schools are our modern day indabas.

Be that as it may be, they must be useful, just like our yesteryear indabas. Do you get it?- StateMedia