By A Correspondent- President Mnangagwa yesterday capped a record 6 977 graduates at the 19th Midlands State University (MSU) graduation ceremony in Gweru.
Of the 6 977, 3 348 were female and 3 629 male.
A total of 989 graduated with Masters degrees and three were awarded Doctor of Philosophy degrees.
In his address, MSU Vice Chancellor Professor Victor Muzvidziwa said the event is by far the largest graduation gathering in the history of MSU.
“Among those graduating today are 100 international students drawn from Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, South Sudan and Mozambique. This is evidence that we have gradually spread our wings in our internationalisation effort,” he said.
Prof Muzvidziwa said resource constraints remain a challenge but the university continues to explore avenues of increasing income from entrepreneurial activities, especially in agriculture, research and innovation.
He said one of the MSU’s key strategic objectives is to be “a technologically-driven research intensive university and to generate problem-solving innovations for commercialisation and industrialisation”.
The MSU VC said its researchers are committed to cutting-edge research.
“In this vein, our researchers have secured competitive domestic and international research grants. We have a total of 15 active international grant funded research projects. Some of these include, Future Leaders – African Independent Research (FLAIR), Global Challenges Research Fund UK, United Nations Development Programme,
Transparency, Responsiveness, Accountability and Citizen Engagement (TRACE), Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA),” he said.
“The awarding of research grants by international agencies to our academics is evidence of their intellectual energy and courage, which we continue to celebrate. In particular, Your Excellency and Chancellor, Dr Gift Mehlana’s work on a grant- funded project has led to his subsequent selection by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Younger Chemists’ Network to represent Californium on the Periodic Table of Young Chemists.
This is a strong endorsement of the international impact of our research in applied science. Dr Gift Mehlana’s name will be etched on the periodic table of young chemists for the next 100 years.
I would have wanted to present Dr Mehlana to you Your Excellency today. He is, however, in Europe to receive an award.”
Prof Muzvidziwa said MSU is always seeking to excel in quality research, innovation and technology transfer.-StateMedia