President Mnangagwa yesterday capped 2 897 graduates at Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) and installed Professor Paul Henry Gundani as the institution’s substantive Vice Chancellor.

A distinguished academic, Prof Gundani took over from Professor Francis Mugabe who had been acting since the death of founding Vice Chancellor Professor Primrose Kurasha in 2017.

At a colourful ceremony held in the capital, President Mnangagwa conferred 1 598 undergraduate degrees, 280 Masters degrees and 15 Doctor of Philosophy degrees.

Women constituted the bulk of graduates at 1 630 which was about 56,2 percent against 1 267 men who constituted 43,8 percent.

The Faculty of Education had the highest number of graduates at 1 432, which constituted about 49,4 percent.

Notable graduates included South Sudanese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Deng Boutros Thok who was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy in Conflict Management and Econet Wireless chief executive Mr Douglas Mboweni who was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy in Business Leadership.

Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said it was high time the country’s education system responded to the needs of industry.

“Remember that as the Second Republic, we are involved in constructing a house. We are involved in building a nation, we are not superficial, we are transforming, we walk the talk,”said Prof Murwira.

“Our problem as a country has never been lack of intelligent people.

To the contrary, our problem has been using systems that are not designed to deliver the output that we desire as a nation, our problem has been a configuration problem, so we have fixed it, move with us.”State media