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The university system has failed the nation - Phiri

The university system has failed the nation - Phiri
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Mon 20 Feb. 2012, 11:59 CAT

EDUCATION minister John Phiri says the Zambian university system has failed the nation. Phiri also said Zambia needs to make follow-ups with Cuba on literacy campaign, the Venezuelan offer to expand secondary and tertiary education, Cuban Communist Party and Patriotic Front party ties and collaboration between Zambian universities and those in Southern Africa, including Cuba.

In an interview on Saturday on the outcome of his trip to Cuba where he attended the University Congress, including meeting Cuban education and foreign ministers, Phiri said it was clear the Zambian university curriculum needed to be reviewed so that it supports sustainable development.

"We need to review the curriculum at all levels so that learners are better prepared for the challenges Zambia faces," he said.

"There is need to realign universities so that they meet the demands or needs of our people and that they stay with the people if sustainable development is to be realized. From the congress, I concluded that our universities answer the demands of the capitalist world rather than the people who are looking for solutions for poverty, hunger, HIV and AIDS, malaria, TB and underdevelopment. The university has failed our people."

Phiri also said there was need for government commitment and funding.

He said over the years in a bid to attain the Millennium Development Goal on universal primary education, Zambia neglected the secondary and tertiary education system. Phiri said Zambia today had 90,000 primary schools against 644 secondary schools and two public universities.

"That system has presented a monster problem for us," he said.

Phiri said there was equally no investment in technical and vocational training for the thousands the school system could not absorb.

He said failure to fund those institutions and beefing human resource had caused a gross problem.

However, Phiri also asked lecturers and students to change the mindset because in other countries, for instance Cuba, which also offered scholarships to thousands foreign students, finances were humble compared to results from those universities.

"Certainly Zambia can learn a lot from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua," he said. "We listened to a presentation on popular education and university extension… so our university must wake up and serve our people and not feed on imperialist curriculum."

Phiri said he also met Communist Party of Cuba director of international relations to whom he conveyed PF leader Michael Sata and Secretary General Wynter Kabimba's message on establishing close working ties.

"The request was positively accepted and the Cuban Communist Party will be waiting for the PF delegation to cement these party-to-party ties," said Phiri.

"The PF is only 10 years old. We are still looking for ideological basis to anchor our programmes… The PF is a people's party and we have more to learn from parties like the Cuban Communist Party for us to deliver better to our people. Where a party carries along aspirations of the people and where the party moves with the people as a united front, all things are possible. That is the biggest thing I have learnt in Cuba. Cuba has no minerals or anything of that kind and look how it has defied the big brother across US at great cost of course. Cuba is a shining example. The PF can enrich the Cuban experience and vice-versa."

Labels: EDUCATION, JOHN PHIRI, UNIVERSITIES

posted by MrK @ 1:52 PM