Universities, colleges to open for final-year students

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa will allow individual institutions of higher learning to reopen to final-year students who are sitting public examinations as long as they can prove their capacity to meet safety regulations – a move that has met with mixed responses from lecturers and students.

Mnangagwa declared COVID-19 a national disaster in March and ordered the closure of schools, colleges and universities as a way of preventing its spread.

On Saturday 16 May the president extended the national lockdown indefinitely but added that there would be a review every two weeks.

The president relaxed some provisions of the lockdown, including some of the restrictions imposed on institutions of higher learning.

“As previously stated, public exam classes within schools and final-year students at colleges and universities must be allowed to continue, recognising however, the stipulated COVID-19 prevention measures,” said Mnangagwa.

Institutional plans

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Nick Mangwana, told state media on the same day that individual university and college authorities are expected to meet parents, among other stakeholders, and come up with plans to determine when they can resume lectures, particularly for students sitting public examinations this year.

The plans would, however, need to be approved by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology in consultation with the Ministry of Health and Child Care. He said the reopening would not take a one-size-fits-all approach, but individual schools and universities were expected to provide a detailed plan in terms of their strategy for preventing the spread of the virus before being allowed to reopen.

The following day, Sunday 17 May, the country’s Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Obadiah Moyo published a new regulation stating that public examinations at schools, colleges, universities or other tertiary education institutions were now an “essential service”.

Claims of a lack of consultation

In an interview with University World News, the president of the College Lecturers’ Association of Zimbabwe, David Dzatsunga, said government had not consulted the association on the reopening of institutions of higher learning and described the situation as “a matter of life and death”.

Dzatsunga said his organisation was opposed to leaving the decision on reopening to individual colleges and universities.

“There must be synchronisation of the higher education calendar. [It is] not to be done by individual institutions … We believe it must be done universally,” he said.

“The decision was done without consultations. The reopening must be done with utmost caution as this is a matter of life and death. There must be proper consultations. Exams cannot be more important than people’s lives. Exams can wait. Most of the academic staff are in the [age] range in which, if they get the virus, it’s likely to be fatal.”

Dzatsunga said institutions of higher learning are not properly equipped to ensure proper social distancing.

By Monday 18 May, Zimbabwe had only 46 COVID-19 recorded cases. The low numbers have been attributed to low testing capacity in the country.

Students support the move

National University of Science and Technology Student Representative Council President Innocent Dombo said final-year students welcomed the decision to reopen universities.

“The decision has been welcomed by students, but there are some concerns, most of them financial,” he said.

He said online learning had been a disaster due to the failure of most students to access data, among other challenges.

Dombo said government must assist universities financially to adhere to the COVID-19 regulations to ensure the safety of students and staff.

According to ZimStat, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate soared to 676.4% in March from 540.2% in February 2020 amid a weak exchange rate and food shortages. Independent experts estimate that the rate is actually over 1,000%, placing most basic goods and services out of reach of ordinary people.