Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Source: MSU media degree suspended | Sunday News (local news)

Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Sunday News Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (ZimChe) has started implementing the Minimum Bodies of Knowledge and Skills (MBK/S) that have seen some programmes at universities being changed or scrapped.

Although Sunday News could not immediately get the list of the affected programmes, it is understood that one of them is Media and Society Studies at the Midlands State University (MSU) in Gweru. The Government last year indicated that at least 20 programmes at various universities would be scrapped since they were producing graduates who do not have innovative skills.

The quality assurance standards exercise was done as a requirement for the Zimbabwe National Qualifications Framework under Statutory Instrument (SI) 133 of 2019. In an interview, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Professor Amon Murwira said ZimChe has come up with the MBK/S that prescribes the basic knowledge and skills that a graduate should possess when they study towards a degree.
MBK/S represent standardisation of the curricula in Higher Education institutions in the country. The MBK/S are tools for facilitating equivalence and comparability of qualifications offered by Higher Education institutions in Zimbabwe. Prof Murwira said ZimChe has suspended all degree programmes that have not met the minimum standards while ZimChe has also compiled MBK/S that would be followed by all universities in the country. He said universities were given an ultimatum to comply with the Minimum Bodies of Knowledge and Skills before the beginning of the 2020 academic year in August.

“ZimChe has come up with Minimum Bodies of Knowledge and Skills (MBK/S) which are tools for facilitating equivalence and comparability of qualifications offered by Higher Education institutions in Zimbabwe. ZimChe has dropped every degree that does not conform to the principles of bodies of knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, at the moment I have no names of the degrees that have failed to meet the minimum standards. The names are with ZimChe. All the universities were supposed to conform to these principles in August this year. This is why we did not enrol first year students in March. If a degree is not compliant with the framework it shall be suspended,” he said.

Prof Murwira said the quality assurance standards exercise ensured that there is uniformity in degree programmes being offered in the country in terms of skill and knowledge.

“We now have the Zimbabwe National Qualifications Framework in which we are saying similar degrees should be standardised with at least 80 percent of their courses overlapping and the remaining 20 percent should cater for the specialisation of that university. What we are also saying is that every course every degree should have two things that are minimum bodies of knowledge and minimum body of skill which means that we would want to know what exactly the student is going to learn in terms of knowledge and skill,” he said.

Minister Murwira said the Media and Society Department at MSU should approach the senate and the council and present their concerns.

This follows an outcry by academics after ZimChe dropped the pioneer media degree programme and compelled the institution to change it.

The post MSU media degree suspended appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: Bulawayo Polytechnic diarrhoea outbreak contained | Sunday News (local news)

Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter
A DIARRHOEA outbreak that recently hit the Bulawayo Polytechnic with an undisclosed number of students and lecturers affected has been contained.

Last month, Bulawayo Polytechnic became the first higher learning institution in the city to report cases of diarrhoea, with authorities banning the use of Bulawayo City Council tap water within the premises.

In an interview with Sunday News last Friday, Bulawayo Polytechnic principal, Mr Gilbert Mabasa confirmed that the outbreak has been contained. “Yes, we have managed to contain the outbreak, actually you can visit the institution anytime and you will discover that we no longer have any active cases,” said Mr Mabasa.

He expressed gratitude to the city health department and authorities for the work they had put in to help contain the outbreak and ensure that the institution’s water is safe for consumption.

The post Bulawayo Polytechnic diarrhoea outbreak contained appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

 

Source: Zanu PF bigwig up for armed robbery | The Standard

BY JAIROS SAUNYAMA

A Zanu PF central committee member was on Friday arrested in Mudzi for allegedly being part of a gang that stole gold ore at a local mine at gunpoint.

Tonderai Bosha (37), who is also the ruling party’s secretary for indigenisation in the youth league, was arrested alongside Khumbulani Chivhanga (36), Sydney Homwe (46), Justin Nyamudyambanje (37), Sternford Chikweto (35), Simbarashe Nyandoro (34) and Owen Mutinha (33).

Mashonaland East provincial police spokesperson Inspector Tendai Mwanza referred questions to national police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi.
Nyathi said he was not aware of the case and would check with Mashonaland East police.

But information obtained from police sources in Mutoko showed that at around 11am on Friday, Bosha and his accomplices went to TradeInvest Mine, in a Ford Forester driven by Homwe.

The suspects parked their vehicle about 100 metres from a shaft where some workers were digging for gold.

Homwe allegedly asked the mine workers about their boss’ whereabouts.

The mine’s foreman Never Mangilazi (44) told the crew that he was the one in charge.

Homwe then asked about the whereabouts of the mine owners and Mangilazi told him that one of the directors Josamu Nyangu (43) was in a cabin at the mine.

Mangilazi sent one of the workers, Baxton Masiiwa (27), to call Nyangu, but the director refused to meet the team saying they should instead come to the cabin where he was.

Bosha allegedly produced a pistol and fired one shot into the air while Chivhanga ordered all the workers to vacate the place.

The suspects got into the shaft and loaded six sacks with gold ore.

They also allegedly took a shovel, pick, hammer and two chisels.
Mangilazi reported the matter at Makosa Police Station, who attended the scene and
managed to arrest the suspects near the mine after their vehicle broke down.
A search was conducted in their vehicle, leading to the recovery of six sacks of gold ore weighing approximately 100kg, a shovel, pick, hammer and two chisels.

Police also recovered a Walther pistol calibre 7.65mm with a magazine loaded with three rounds in Bosha’s pockets.

The post Zanu PF bigwig up for armed robbery appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Demand for Chinese language interpreters increasing in Zimbabwe

Source: Demand for Chinese language interpreters increasing in Zimbabwe – Chinadaily.com.cn

HARARE-At a fertilizer manufacturing plant near Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, a Chinese factory manager instructed local employees how to operate a hydraulic roof sheet roll forming machine.

The workers listened attentively as the manager speaks. But what was peculiar about the interaction was that there was no common language between the manager and the local employees.

Instead, the whole interaction was made possible by the help of an interpreter who listened carefully to the manager’s instructions and then clearly translate his directives into the local Shona language.

The interpreter had to make sure that meaning was not lost through translation. While the entire process seemed easy, and the switch between Chinese and Shona by the interpreter seamed natural and effortless, a slight mistranslation may stall work progress at the plant.

Working in a construction site at plant with heavy machinery and high voltage electricity required impeccable interpretation, and in a worst-case scenario a slight mistake in translation could result in a fatal accident.

The interpreter who made communication between the Chinese manager and the local employees possible during the entire demonstration of how the machine works is Tawanda Zimhindo, director and founder of Zimgro Language Consultants, a local firm that offers translation and interpretation services to Chinese people and locals.

Zimhindo is also a Chinese language lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe Confucius Institute (UZCI), and he holds a Master’s Degree in teaching Chinese to speakers of other Languages from a Chinese university.

While economic engagement between Zimbabwe and China has grown exponentially over the years, a language barrier between the two sides remains a major challenge, and Zimhindo has made it his mandate to plug that gap.

“Communication is important,” Zimhindo told Xinhua. “A lot of Chinese people are doing business in Zimbabwe. In fact in terms of investments, our major investors are Chinese people here, but without communication there is nothing we can do.”

“So I realized that there is a big communication challenge between Zimbabweans and Chinese people since Zimbabweans can’t speak Chinese and Chinese people can’t speak English,” he said.

In Zimhindo’s words, language is a very important tool in cementing relations and fostering more business opportunities between Zimbabwe and China, adding that a linguistic barrier between the two sides is proving to be a stumbling block.

Besides providing translation and interpretation services, Zimgro offers language lessons.

“So to bridge that gap I then decided to come up with an organization that will teach Chinese people English and local people Chinese language and also offering translation and interpretation services only to solve communication challenges and to make sure that business flows well,” said Zimhindo.

Gao Runbing, the factory Manager at Moreyear Investments, a Chinese-owned company that manufactures fertilizers based in Norton just outside Harare, said Zimgro translation services have provided much assistance in bridging the communication gap between locals and the Chinese.

“I came to Zimbabwe and created a company here. I speak Chinese and do not speak English, but local people speak English only, so I had to hire an interpreter. The interpreter helped us a lot in communicating with local people so that we managed to establish a good relationship with them,” Gao said.

Zimhindo said with increased Chinese investments, demand for Chinese language translators and interpreters has increased.

In order to prepare more young interpreters for the industry, Zimgro has since started offering translation and interpretation training that provides linguistic understanding and expert knowledge of subject matter specific to different industries to recent Chinese speaking graduates.

Seven translators are currently working under the Zimgro umbrella.

Many translators and interpreters have passed through Zimhindo’s hands as his Chinese language students at UZCI.

The last decade has seen many Zimbabwean students seeking education in China, and some of them already returned home and are already working with Chinese enterprises in Zimbabwe or running their own businesses.

Some of the returning students are also working as Chinese translators for local as well as Chinese companies, or have taken up administrative roles making communication between the Zimbabwean and Chinese sides easier.

China has been among the largest foreign direct investment sources for Zimbabwe in nearly two decades, and the Asian country is one of Zimbabwe’s largest trading partners.

And with more Chinese investments in Africa expected to increase, Chinese translation and interpretation services will continue to be sought after. Zimhindo and many other Chinese-speaking Zimbabweans are actively playing a vital role in making sure that a language barrier between the two sides shrinks.

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