The Future of Education

The government of Zimbabwe has for the past thirty seven years been producing teachers who like their predecessors only focused on book knowledge which was completely divorced from enhancing the economy of the country and that of Africa as a whole. The Minister of higher and Tertiary Education seems to have finally accepted that schools should now turn away from this kind of education which in its essence produced job seekers. The thrust of education is now towards the production of entrepreneurs who are crucial in driving the economy. This is evidenced by the introduction of STEM which is aimed at imparting hands on scientific skills which may then transform into the revitalisation of the economy through teaching of Science, technology engineering and mathematics. However, although the thinking by the Ministry should be applauded it is still worrying that the university curriculums have not been revised to assist the realisation of these seemingly noble ideas. This paper aims at interrogating what the universities should focus on so as to produce graduates who are innovative.  Using a phenomenological design, data was collected from twenty students from one university to establish what should be done produce entrepreneurs and not job seekers. Guided by an eclectic theory which argues that institutions should be open to a variety of practices and models which may enhance growth, data was generated through phenomenological interviews with twenty university students randomly selected from three faculties in one Zimbabwean university. The main finding was that universities were ivory towers which were detached from the economy. The study recommended that state universities should be encouraged to rebrand their programs so as to meet the needs of the economy.

Keywords: entrepreneurs, stematisation, curriculum, rebranding, universities;