Government has threatened to deregister universities that do not engage in research work.
High Education Minister Nkandu Luo says both public and private universities must prioritize more in research activities as they are a cornerstone of any academia.
Pro Luo laments that she is disappointed with the low number of higher learning institutions engaged in research.
ZANIS reports that Pro Luo, complained that the impact of 61 universities that the country has could not be felt in the absence of research.
“The impact of 61 Universities cannot be felt if higher learning institutions are not fully involved in research work,” she complained.
“We cannot feel the impact of the 61 universities, because they don’t do any research. How can a university operate without engaging in research work” She asked.
The Minister threatened to deregister universities not doing research work to college level.
Prof. Luo was speaking when she officiated at the capacity workshop on using high impact data to improve research output in Zambia.
The Minister said the desire of government is to make decisions based on evidence collected through research.
She complained that the current research work being done by higher learning institutions is not impacting the lives of the Zambian people.
Prof. Luo appealed to institutions mandated to carry out research work to repositions themselves and venture into serious research.
She noted that if government is availed with evidence obtained from research, then government can make informed decisions based on the data available.
“We need our own evidence to help us make our own decisions as government. Time is long gone when we looked for evidence elsewhere.” She stated.
She explained that Countries around the world are growing their economies through using knowledge obtained through research.
The Minister said Zambia should emulate and create its own evidence gathered through research work.
Prof Luo said government was failing to make decisions on many matters as there is little or evidence to enable government make a decision.
She indicated that the country will lag behind if institutions don’t priorities research work top on the agenda.
True. Research is very important for our Country’s socio economic growth.
We also need to promote innovation and creativity. We can run some programs such as competitions whereby awards and financial support is given to those who can come up with brilliant and viable projects in engineering, technology and other fields. Protection of those idea is also very important. The Government should do this.
61 universities in Zambia??
I only know 2.
The 3rd one, Mushindo is incomplete.
People like Luo, a professor of some sort are what grinds my gear. What is her constituency? Obviously she does not have any! In the first place Munali isn’t because it was nullified. On LT if she has a constituency, I will not be a part. Why does she behave as if she has never been to school? She makes Lusambo seem like a professor! You do not de-register universities that do not engage in research, you just down grade them on the ranking then such universities will loose good status in turn they will not have students and will be out of be out of the running! Anyway she was schooled in Russia!
You can’t even pay student meal allowance and you talk of research….. this country has really gone to the Dogs.
When is this man being fired?
now is when you’re waking up.
you’re busy opening so called universities, institutions that don’t even qualify to be called colleges
and on the other hand, how the hell does she expect these institutions to engage in research when they ain’t allocated grants for research. is she a real prof of has one of these Zambian politicians called dr whatever? if she’s went to post grad she’d know what it takes to do research…from the ground up to publishing.
let her start by telling us how much money the govnt has put into these institutions for research, then and only then can her criticisms of be justified.
They should have been de-registered decades ago. What kind of University doesnt do research? How do their students post their dissertations? From speculation? No university should operate without at least 5 professors.
They should never have been granted university status in the first place. The majority of these so-called universities do not meet the minimum requirements for being a university. How on earth they were granted charters as universities is everyone’s guess
This is an important point Hon Luo. Research is the cornerstone of any development undertaken in a country. Its because Zambia has proper research institutions that you find we are still planting the same maize seeds that our forefathers used, using the same schools that KK built and hospitals too. No reliable statistics on child mortality, adult mortality and suicides.
Sorry, the word ‘no’ is missing. It should read, its because Zambia has no proper ….
Zambia has good quality seed maize and in fact we export seed maize to some countries in COMESA region. Mortality statistics are not bad as every death that occurs in a hospital setting is recorded and the Ministry of Health has a statistics department that undertakes this work which is then fed to the Central Statistical Office. On this one I choose to defend government.
Research is very important not only for universities concerned but also for the economic development of the country. However the government must spearhead or kick start research by equipping the government universities with research facilities in all faculties of the institutions. We should discourage the importation of cheap equipment that can easily be engineered in our institutions. Zambian students are above average despite not having resources to improve their research abilities. Just like in our hospitals, Doctors cant perform simple operations due to lack of resources. How do you explain the president going to south Africa for simple medical check up. WALK THE TALK AND EQUIP UNIVERSITIES.
There has to be a template or check off list for getting registered as a University. That template is created by the governing body = Government. Someone has been sleeping on the job or there were no standards in the first place. Show us a plan to fix the problem.
This woman talks claptrap, a professor without a chair. Where does that leave UNZA and CBU then? Research thesis after research thesis…zero tangible results.
Luo, your Ministry should give awards to Unis that produce research in refereed journàls. This is what the SA government does. This way you will envourage research.
Even important professional bodies like the Engineering Association of Zambia must support research in the universities or deliberately create its own research wing and encourage its members to get involved in cutting edge research. They should go beyond just having symposia where they merely expound theory, and start having exhibition shows during their AGMs where we can see the actualization of those theories expounded in the symposia. We are tired of seeing our so called engineers merely assembling, installing and repairing what other engineers have manufactured, or just supervising projects mainly designed and whose equipment to execute them are from from outside. Enough is enough. They have even changed to being addressed as Engineer X or Y from the ‘Mr ‘ title, is this only for…
What nonsense is this?