President Mnangagwa expected to cap 2500 graduates at NUST

President Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa will preside over the National University of Science and Technology (NUST)’s 31st graduation ceremony.

 

He is set to confer degrees to 2501 graduands.

 

This year’s event is running under the theme: think beyond limits: ignite innovation, power industrialisation.

 

The idea of a Second University in Zimbabwe was first mooted in June 1982 in the Report of the University of Zimbabwe, Vice Chancellor’s committee of Inquiry into the high failure rates which that University experienced in the years 1980 and 1981.

It was not until late 1987, that the Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, Professor Walter Kamba discussed with his colleagues the necessity of approaching Government about setting up a feasibility study of a second university/campus.

 

As a result of this discussion a recommendation was made to the then Minister of Education, Dr Dzingai Mutumbuka that a Commission be set up to look into the question of a second institution of higher education in Zimbabwe.

 

The Commission presented its report to His Excellency, the late former President, Robert G. Mugabe on the 1st February 1989.

 

Its major conclusion was that, on the basis of manpower requirements for economic growth and of the increasing number of well qualified `A’ level school leavers, University expansion “is not only justified: it is also a necessity”.

 

It recommended that a “Second University should be established with a Science and Technology bias”, and that the University “be located in Bulawayo and should admit its first students in 1993”.

 

After considering the report of the Commission, the Government of Zimbabwe decided to accept all the recommendations contained therein except the one relating to the timing of the first intake of students.

 

Instead of 1993 the government decided that the University should open its “doors” to the first intake of students in May 1991.

 

However, there was a delay in taking steps for the actual implementation of the commission’s report. It was not until late 1989 that a committee was formed by the Ministry of Higher Education to make a first draft of the new University’s enabling legislation.

 

The final draft Bill was presented to the Zimbabwe Parliament by the then Minister of Higher Education, Cde David Karimanzira on the 24th of October, 1990. It was piloted through Parliament together with a Bill amending the 1982 University of Zimbabwe Act.

 

The effect was to make the Acts of the two universities virtually identical.

 

The name “National University of Science and Technology (NUST)” was adopted for the New University in Bulawayo. Meanwhile, even before the new University Bill was presented to Parliament the Minister of Higher Education had constituted the foundation Committee of the then proposed National University of Science and Technology.