Students hail new era of freedom in higher education

Students have greeted the resignation of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe with jubilation, describing it as an early Christmas present, while urging the incoming government to guarantee academic freedoms and provide free higher education.

Mugabe resigned on Tuesday last week after 37 years of uninterrupted rule that started when Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980.

Mugabe's resignation came as parliament was starting to debate a motion to impeach him after the Zimbabwe Defence Forces placed him under house arrest and announced that it was hunting “criminals” around him, a move that forced the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo into exile.

Other key members in Mugabe’s regime, including his nephew Patrick Zhuwao, have also fled, while others have been detained by the military.

The Zimbabwe Defence Forces' preferred candidate, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a stalwart of the country’s liberation war and a lawyer by profession, is replacing Mugabe.

Reports in the local media note that Moyo is believed to have been the brains behind the so-called G40 faction that was allegedly masterminding the expulsion of liberation war heroes in ZANU-PF, including Mnangagwa, and pushing for First Lady Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband.

Mugabe initially tried to cling to power but eventually resigned in the face of mass demonstrations addressed by student leaders, politicians and war veterans, and moves by parliament to impeach him.

Clampdown on academic freedom

In a statement, the Zimbabwe National Students Union or ZINASU said it welcomed the resignation of the former president who was also the chancellor of all state universities in Zimbabwe, arguing that Mugabe’s departure would weaken the shackles keeping students from accessing education and academic freedoms.

“His 37 years as chancellor has resulted in the deterioration of the education sector in terms of its capacity to deliver quality academic services, seen academic grants removed and expensive tuition fees being introduced, resulting in tens of thousands of students either deferring or dropping out of school.

"His clampdown on academic freedoms left seven members of ZINASU dead, 763 suspended and 204 expelled from colleges countrywide through the application of the draconian Public Order and Security Act and oppressive ordinances,” said the student union.

ZINASU said it considers Mugabe’s resignation an early Christmas present.

“We also regard his departure as an opportunity for a new and reformed chancellor who is responsive to the needs, issues and concerns of Zimbabwean students. To whoever is replacing Mugabe, the new chancellor should know that we want free education, we want grants, we want to enjoy academic freedoms without any restrictions and, above all, we want a functional economy which will be able to absorb us for employment once we graduate,” said ZINASU.

Education comes off the back-burner

The Zimbabwe Congress of Students Union or ZICOSU Secretary-General Godknows Mdhari said the recent political changes within the Zimbabwean government will bring new leadership to the higher education sector.

“Our education system had been placed on the back-burner and is in need of fundamental changes. President Mnangagwa will appoint ministers on merit and not as payback as Mugabe ended up doing during his last days. Soon our education system will be free of [higher education minister] Jonathan Moyo and the positive changes will be noticed soon under the new minister that we are expecting,” said Mdhari.

In the days leading up to the resignation, students were actively campaigning against Mugabe, culminating on Monday last week in a refusal by students of the University of Zimbabwe to sit for their examinations until Mugabe had agreed to step down.

Order was restored at the university and examinations were put back on track after the military that night called on students to end their protest action and proceed with their scheduled educational programmes.

University authorities had announced on the Monday that the institution would close and that examinations would be moved to January in response to the protests.

At the time students also called for the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Levi Nyagura, to step down over his role in the university conferring a doctoral degree on Mugabe’s wife Grace – within three months of her registration as a student. They also blamed Nyagura for the university’s poor performance in international rankings.

Student agenda

Former University of Zimbabwe or UZ students’ council secretary-general Chrispen Mahachi, who led the protests, was quoted as saying they were tired of corruption at the university, including the allegedly dubious award of a PhD to the First Lady in 2014. He said the act devalues the standards of the institution.

“This is clearly a students' agenda as you can see our motive as students is to send a message that we are tired. Levi Nyagura must resign for donating a PhD to [First Lady] Grace Mugabe,” he said.

“Our learning standards as UZ continue to deteriorate and we have moved from number 41 on the international ranking to a three-digit number, which is totally unacceptable.”

Hours after the university announced the closure, Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander, General Constantino Chiwenga, appeared on state television and urged students to continue with their educational programmes. He also asked them to refrain from any actions or activities that would threaten peace, life and property.

“Students at the country’s various institutions are encouraged to keep calm and to proceed with their educational programmes as scheduled. They need to remember that one day of education lost is difficult to recover,” said Chiwenga.

On Tuesday morning, the University of Zimbabwe announced that it had reversed its decision to shut. UZ Registrar Dr Noah Mutongoreni said students must ignore Monday’s statement postponing the examinations.

General to sue Moyo over PhD claims

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Chiwenga is suing former higher education minister Moyo in the Harare High Court for an amount of US$5 million after Moyo claimed in July that the doctorate the top soldier received from South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal was “fake” because someone authored the thesis on his behalf.

According to the state-run Herald newspaper, in court papers General Chiwenga said the statement was highly defamatory of him as it suggested that he had plagiarised and violated the research methods at the university, which are acts of misconduct.

Moyo issued the statement on 9 July. It was published on various media platforms.

He has not been seen in public since the army intervened to oust Mugabe.

Although Zimbabwe’s privately owned daily paper NewsDay last week reported that Moyo was believed to be among those detained, a member of his family told University World News the minister was “out of the country”.

Earlier this year, a court ruled that Moyo must face charges of allegedly misappropriating around US$450,000 from a manpower development fund that finances students, among other activities.