Zimbabwe: University Businesses Advance Nation

The range of businesses set up by Zimbabwe’s State universities as part of the Heritage-based Education 5.0 programme continues to grow with some, having met local demand, looking at export markets within the region.

It is important when we look at these units to note that we are looking at something practical, and practical not just in the sense that new products are being produced but that they are being produced in viable business units that make a profit.

The change in education concepts was not a switch.

The theoretical studies remain as they were and perhaps even have to be strengthened, since everything that is applied starts with theory.

What Education 5.0 does is expand the role of education, adding innovation and practical applications to the theory, which both enhances the learner’s grasp of that theory and shows some of the ways it can be put to use. It also ensures that each academic discipline does not operate in a vacuum, but that teams can be formed that bring into play a range of disciplines.

The putting to use is not just some rarefied addition to education, a sort of sop to those who want to know what use knowledge and theory are, but rather must be anchored in sound economic and business units. There are millions of things that can be done with a sound grasp of theory, especially when theory from a range of theoretical academic studies are brought into play.

When you consider that most of the practical applications need some investment, and in some cases considerable investment, this extra requirement is that the application goes beyond being a possible option and in fact must be a viable and profitable business proposition.

Looking at one of the range of these new university businesses that was highlighted this week, the number plate manufacturing at the University of Zimbabwe, we can see all the factors involved. There was the solid engineering required, choosing the right equipment and making sure it was properly connected.

But the security issues, which include the “third number plate” stuck on the windscreen also mean that each set of plates is unique, is authorised by the Central Vehicle Registry and accounted for, and that there are no extra sets, duplicate sets or missing sets. That requires a fair amount of software connected to the hard engineering.

The original intention was for the number plates that are needed to register new and newly imported vehicles in Zimbabwe to be readily available, a complication when these had to come from Germany and be paid for in foreign currency.

While old fashioned plates were made locally, the modern plates with security features, the third number plate and the accountability meant imports.

Now they are made locally to the same standard. The price remains the same. A set of plates is a one-off expense for the owner of a newly made or imported vehicle and so long as they are available, which they now are, owners do not object. Some of that cost is the processing charge at CVR to get the registration numbers details of the vehicle, and its engine and chassis numbers, and details of the owner into the database. The rest of the charge is the price of the physical plates.

The previous German manufacturer must have made a profit in the manufacture, so it can be safely assumed that the UZ is making a profit, and it is probably a bit higher as delivery is a few kilometres not a few thousand kilometres.

That gives UZ an extra source of income, over and above what it gets through Government grants, research fees and student fees, and every dollar helps ensure the university becomes an ever better university.

Probably because of the nature of the equipment, UZ is in a position to make far more plates than the present Zimbabwean economy needs, even with the rising imports and rising vehicle ownership. So it wants to export, and export is not just making the plates but adding in all that security detail. The UZ costs are the same as external suppliers, and it will be easy for the registration authority in a neighbouring country to send someone over to check that all requirements are met.

Other businesses set up through universities are also bringing in fee income, such as the gas plant at Feruka, a child of the Harare Institute of Technology, which has started exports to Mozambique on competitive tenders, and the two fruit processing factories in Rutenga and Mutare, which have been going way beyond import substitution to making unique products using Zimbabwean indigenous fruit. They will need export markets to be fully productive.

Some of the businesses, such as software writing, can be done for customers anywhere, and here the build-up of solid examples of work already done makes it easier to look for more business. In that sort of business you need something that works without bugs. Some of this business is done with the universities asked to solve a technical problem, for a fee, and some requires the universities to operate a business and install the required equipment.

We are also obviously seeing some academics moving into business operations or starting their own businesses, and that is where these industrial parks come into play. We should, in fact, have academics and business people moving back and forth between universities and the business world so they can follow their research interests in one sphere and then apply research, their own and from others, in the business sphere.

As has been stressed, Education 5.0 is not dumping theory and academic research, but adding applications of that theory and research to the base. But the base needs to be complete and solid.

Universities have teaching functions as well as research functions, and now business functions. Successful graduating students who know their theory, how it can be expanded through research and how it can be applied, are obviously far more use, and more able to be create their own businesses, or to gain employment than someone descending from an ivory tower.

So that large flood of graduates that we are training up becomes a seriously important investment that drives the expansion of the economy, because they should be able to think and do, not just repeat what the textbooks and lecturers say and get a piece of paper to frame on the wall.