Education opens doors to rapid national economic development
The most important resource that any nation has is its human resource. It is the human resource that drives all other resources. This resource is much more important than capital. It generates capital. The sooner we understand this, the better.
Deliberate action should be taken towards human resource development at national level.
Careful planning and investment in education, as well as skills development, lead to valuable innovation. This has been magnificently demonstrated by China and the tiger nations (Singapore and South Korea and Chinese territories Hong Kong and Taiwan).
They have leapfrogged to become formidable economies to reckon with in the world.
What is it that they did right? What lesson can be gleaned from their rags to riches stories?
The earlier generations were mostly farmers. They were mainly concerned with the production of raw materials and the economies were agro-based.
However, these farmers, most of them being rice growers, understood the value of education and made significant investments towards the education of the subsequent generations.
The later generations were made up of a well-defined educated elite, some of the most educated in the world.
This facilitated the transition from agricultural economies to industrial ones. They began processing the raw materials they produced and imported the surplus.
Having a strong educational base, they moved into technology where they started manufacturing semi-conductors (Taiwan), televisions, laptops and phones.
The Asian (rice economies as they are referred to in other literature) did not start by making highly advanced technological goods, they started with the manufacture of clothing, textiles and plastics using readily available raw materials.
They processed the cotton they produced into fashionable clothing they imported worldwide. There are many arguments and reasons which may be cited as to why the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco) is struggling.
I am persuaded in the direction that one of the reasons for the present state of affairs is that Zimbabwe lacks a well-developed clothing and textile industry.
Textile manufacturers like the David Whitehead Textiles are struggling and cannot absorb the output produced by local cotton farmers.
Most of the clothes in our boutiques are imported.
If a well-established clothing and textile industry existed, then cotton would be in demand and the prices would reflect the status quo. Farmers would not be abandoning cultivating the “white gold”.
Currently, the nation exports about 80 percent of the lint. Growing cotton for export proves futile since the global prices do not tally with the cost of production in Zimbabwe.
It boggles the mind that Zimbabwe, once a significant cotton producer to reckon with, still lacks a well-developed clothing industry.
We need to start by utilising the raw materials we are producing. Instead of exporting cotton, efforts should be made towards improving and developing the textile and To do this successfully, we need a particular set of skills and this is where education fits in the puzzle.
Due to a lack of skills critical for rapid economic development, we are still in the primary industry phase whilst most nations are already in the technology phase.
Technology is the future, perhaps the future has already started unfolding. It is not possible to capitalise on the immense benefits that technology has to offer without having a well-educated and trained populace.
The Minister for Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Professor Amon Murwira bemoaned the skills deficit in various educational sectors of Zimbabwe.
Friends of mine from a certain local university told me of a story recounted to them by one of their lecturers who went to the Netherlands for postgraduate studies.
This lecturer could not carry out micro-injection of DNA into the pronuclei of a fertilised egg in the biotechnological process of making transgenic animals.
The course instructor assumed that he already knew what needed to be done and gave him the necessary materials, instruments and equipment. Upon realisation that he could not carry out the task, the instructor, with concern ,bemoaned the quality of master’s degrees being awarded by Zimbabwean universities.
I have heard stories of dormitories that have malfunctioning electrical wiring in some of our tertiary institutions yet such hostels are home to fourth-year electrical engineering students.It is good to have an understanding of the theories behind the workings of things, but it is better to know how to make use of the systems and mechanisms in a practical way.
It is good that the Government through its bilateral relations with various countries sends students to study abroad promoting the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme.
Still on that subject, I am reminded of a question asked by one friend of mine who is a materials scientist.
“Does the government have a specific plan or arrangement for the students that are sent to study abroad?” was the question.
It would be futile to send people abroad and have no special programme in place to incorporate and integrate the new skills they bring along.
This cannot happen by chance, it has to be a deliberate programme.
It is the solemn duty of the engineers trained in the industrial nations to educate the masses and come up with modern, innovative designs, systems and approaches.
They cannot do this unless they are well integrated into the existing structures. Sending them to learn abroad is one part, but integrating them into the system is the second and vital step which ensures that we reap benefits from step one. Some cues can be taken from the Chinese experience.
Fifty years ago, China was nowhere near where it is today. The game-changer to China’s success story was education.
The Chinese have always had an amiable set of values which also constitute a great work ethic, a knack for numbers and a good perception of time, but these alone could not usher them into the modern era.
They knew what they had to do and they sent a lot of young people to foreign universities in the west.
This generation of western-educated Chinese came back with revolutionary ideas that transformed the nation.
They fully understood the concept of globalisation and replicated the technologies they had seen in the western world.
The same goes for the Japanese. They were not the first to make cars but they took the idea and made it their own. They looked for ways of improving the idea and that paid handsome dividends.
Toyota was not the first to come up with a four-wheel drive (4×4) car, Land Rover did. However, Toyota realised the potential of this innovation and capitalised on it.
Today, the Landcruiser and Hilux models are first choice off-road vehicles in many parts of the world. Be that as it may, Japan could not have managed this great feat was it not for its well-trained and skilled human resource.
Japan is mountainous and does not have a lot of natural resources yet it is the secondlargest car manufacturer in the world. The success was on the backdrop of applied knowledge that the Japanese utilised.
We should also start moving in this direction.
The role of education in national development can never be overemphasised. Industrial economies demand skilled labour.
Africa is blessed to have a huge potential labour resource. I use the word “potential” because the people need to be skilled to carry out specific tasks and produce the desired output.
It is sad that early this year when the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) released the Grade 7 examination results, about 88 schools across the country recorded zero percent pass rate.
The national pass rate was 37 percent and this is worrisome for every concerned Zimbabwean citizen.
The question arises, What kind of future are we creating with 67 percent of youths that could not even pass Grade 7 examinations?
It is even more disheartening when considering the future of those pupils who came from schools that recorded zero percent pass rate.
It is said that when the South Korean economy was still primitive, the Koreans realised that their greatest resource was their minds.-herald.cl.zw
