The Zambian government is contemplating to introduce a career pathway in all technical secondary schools that will enable students with desires to learn skills to spend an additional two years after completing grade twelve to acquire skills competency.
High Education Minister Prof. Nkandu Luo told journalists at the PF Interactive Forum held at Chrisma Hotel on Sunday that careers skills will be taught to all students in Technical Secondary Schools across the country for the purpose of helping acquire skills without going to the college first.
“The government intend to put up a premium skill development centres in all technical secondary schools where students will be exposed to various skills at an early in life.”
Prof. Luo added, as students progress in education and make a decision of the course they want to take in life, they will relay on the skills learnt and acquired at an early stage for their future career development.
According to Prof. Luo after completing grade twelves, students that desire to master the marked skill will have an additional two years for them to acquire competency and will be awarded not only a diploma but also tools to enable them set up businesses in their areas.
“At graduation students will be given tools which they will carry with them home and set up small industry and begin to make money as they wait to further their careers life.”
She disclosed that technical schools will be built in provinces to prevent students from travelling long distances in search of skills development centres.
Prof Luo also disclosed that the government has began the process of redefining the National Institute for Scientific Research (NISR) which she said will work side by side with the planned establishment of a nuclear centre in Lusaka.
She suggested that nuclear science is an important branch of medicine whose presence in Zambia will prevent government from importing experts abroad to deal with complicated cases.
She said the government has sent Zambian experts abroad to train in various fields in nuclear science.
“Zambia is in a hurry to speed up the research process on nuclear science to discover the causes of diseases troubling the people in Zambia.”
Additionally, Prof. Luo stated that the government has established a higher education authority that will clear the mess in the country’s academic system.
“This branch will set the benchmark of the lecturer that will be tasked to teach in the higher educations in Zambia.”
She said the minimum qualification for lecturer at the University level will be a Masters, PhD and professorship.
“The government is also recreating the status of the universities so that they can reclaim their lost glory.”
Meanwhile Prof. Luo has linked strikes and riots that have taken place in the country’s universities in the recent past to massive political infiltration.
She complained that preliminary investigations has revealed that most of the people rioting in schools are not students.
She said the government is fast working on modalities of depoliticizing the higher learning institutions.
She said soon the people organising to riots in the universities will be exposed for making the learning environment difficult
She said the Universities is not a place to teaching students to pass examination but rather a development centre where the young people are prepared for the world.
“The government therefore will not allow any one to disturb the learning environment in the universities across the country.”
“The government intend to put up a premium skill development centres in all technical secondary schools where students will be exposed to various skills at an early in life.”
Day dreamers……you can not even sort out the accommodation mess at UNZA and CBU or the salaries and you are already dreaming …
Interesting coming from Dr.Luo…so this govt actually has a plan? Careful what you say because your Boss, Edgar, said there is no plan….so which is which?
Aba nabo!
University lecturers minimum qualifications are long overdue. How can a primary school teacher lecture a university course? Impossible
Nkandu Luo, all these things you are doing are irrelevant until you can sort out the electoral Misdemeanour in Munali. In any case you are old wood and we deserve better.
If you are talking about skills centres, trades schools are already there in each province. The problem here is not luck of skills but it is luck of jobs. Zambia has the most educated population in the whole of Southern Africa excluding white South Africa. This fake professor and her gang of thieves have run out ideas and they cannot recognise that they need to create jobs, pretty quick because time is running out.
Lungu and the whole of pf are of the mindset that if they create an enabling environment , half of jobs required create them selves and the other half are created by investors.
This is where they are foundamentally wrong. There is no developed country on earth that started off their early development with this approach. PFs Zambia will be the first country to do so…….
How many times did UNZA or CBU close when late LPM was president? The answer is zero times. Why? because LPM never feared students or hid anything from them. He met student leaders himself at State House and explained govt thinking and what it was doing for them. He was honest about govt finances and he discussed the education budget with them. The result was peace and quiet , salaries were being paid on time. Nad yet LPM had no eurobonds money, no tollgate fees, he still had to pay debt from UNIP days . No government has had as much money as the PF government since the early 1960s.
That is why PF will fail and is lamentably failing….they are hardwired to work with borrowed money.
That is the sad fact. Not that anyone is wishing for them to fail , but with the corruption and financial indiscipline of lungu, one only prays.
When is the Con Court ruling?
Prof Luo must be having sleepless nights
She can not stomach going back to UNZA when the courts kick her out!!
I don’t see us moving out of third world status ,with this kind of thinking.the very schools she is talking about are not fully equipped to prepare students to enter university. We already have enough technical colleges in zambia why can’t you equip them with world class equipments,so that we can produce world class trade men,who are competent enough to transform our industries.
Chipante pante government!!!!
“She said the minimum qualification for lecturer at the University level will be a Masters, PhD and professorship”.
This fake professor, this has always been the standard ,it is just you and your PF thug’s corruption which has diluted them.
“Zambia is in a hurry to speed up the research process on nuclear science to discover the causes of diseases troubling the people in Zambia.”
Do you really need nuclear science to establish the simple causes of Cholera, Malaria & co.? Scientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that what we are taught in institutions of higher learning seldom enriches the mind like that which we teach ourselves through personal experience and individual research (sidewalk university).
In other words, all that is worthy for man to know, he himself must work out and find out for himself. That is the basis of real progress and development.
Ja, das stimmt!
Is this in the budget?
You are asking high ranking member of PF “intelligentsia” about “budget”?
Do you think that ugliest illegal MP knows the meaning of “budget”?
This woman (Professor) is one highly educated foooool indeed…she is still talking about skills of manual work other countries are talking about ICT and encouraging critical thinking she is still stuck in the 1960s.
“Prof Luo also disclosed that the government has began the process of redefining the National Institute for Scientific Research (NISR) which she said will work side by side with the planned establishment of a nuclear centre in Lusaka.”
She is talking gibberish …these are 20 year programs you can not simply redefined an institution I mean of what importance is nuclear technology to a country like ours!!
She may be planing to “nuke” cholera germs?
People need to see action, not promises. Please Minister do not waste time telling people what you haven’t done. This after all seems to be just a mere politicking, no time frame given, cost benefit, source of funding, which skills shortages are there etc.
The mistake most so called educated people is they want to equate their tuma qualifications to wisdom! That is how many of them end up as educated f00ls devoid of common sense! Rather than wanting to re-invent the wheel, why not make what has been work better again? Is it not a fact that College educated Engineers are far much better than UNZA engineer graduates who according to Sata (MHSRIP) only know how to put on Suites and tyes? Look at the Chinese Engineers, always in field attire and in the field! Whenever you give an UNZA engineer work to do, you end up with engineering blunders even in simple drawings. Engineering Mathematics alone without the relevant practical application only produces Parots! Let our education system transform from theory to practical! The trouble we have also…
The trouble we have also is Lecturers who teach what they don’t practice themselves! You have someone teaching Agriculture science but has no simple garden for practical application! Knowledge that cannot be applied practically is useless! For example, what has Luo’s professorship benefitted the country in practical terms? It has just made her more conceited to think she knows everything. Real professors are analytical and when you interact with them, you see the substance!
Whoever wrote this article has dealt a disservice to the Minister’s message; littered with careless construction and incoherent grammatical errors it reminds me of why we are being led by loud mouths and charlatans. Anyway community college, apprenticeship and the like still rely on a solid, stable economy. Chicken and egg anyone?
Prof,
You seem to have brilliant ideas but tend to attempt to do too much. You simply dont have the resources so stay focussed and stop wandering.There is nothing wrong with the current educational structure. All you need is to work on efficiency and effectiveness. To your credit, you hint on the desired qualifications of staff to teach in higher institutions. This is what will bring efficiency and effectiveness. The current situation where where
even diploma holders are teaching on degree programmes ( especislly in private institutiond) is unacceptable.
Develop the skills as you may…..have you created the jobs to absorb the manpower so created? Total hogwash and utter rubbish. After fifty years or so of being independent Zambia has never gone beyond the claimed USD20 billion GDP per annum. One might ask where are the jobs going to come from with this dismal performance, which is actually on downward trend…. recorded at USD19.5 GDP per annum (2016)
And these are the same people who want to create a nuclear power plant.it would an absolute disaster, if you ask me….fortunately it will be another thousand years before it happens if at all . Just how much drivel comes out of these government chaps is unbelievable.
@3 Chanchima. The answer you have given to your first question is not entirely true. I was a student at UNZA when LPM was presido. In 2003, for instance, UNZA opened in February but closed after a month until June. Again in 2006, UNZA closed around elections time for 6 or so weeks. That Levy met student leaders himself is true. Antonio Mwanza, Sage Samwika and Cornelius Mweetwa were some of the student leaders who met and talked with Levy.