Minister, vice-chancellors to sign performance contracts

Zimbabwe has introduced a system of rating the vice-chancellors of all state universities. They are now required to sign performance contracts, the results of which will be made public annually in a programme the government says is aimed at ensuring high performance in the public sector.

Vice-chancellors, as well as Professor Amon Murwira, the minister of higher and tertiary education, science and technology development, and other cabinet ministers, will sign the contracts in the presence of President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The Zimbabwe Office of the President and the Cabinet will be in charge of the rating.

Mnangagwa has introduced a number of reforms in the country after coming to power in November 2017, when the army toppled his long-time mentor, former president Robert Mugabe, who died two years after the coup.

Some of the reforms include amending and introducing laws to govern the country’s higher education sector.

Under the performance contracts programme, secretaries (departmental heads), including the higher and tertiary education, science and technology development secretary, were the first to sign contracts last year and the initiative is being expanded to include ministers and the vice-chancellors of the dozen functioning state universities in Zimbabwe.

“To foster a high-performance culture across the entire public sector, the government of Zimbabwe, this year, has introduced performance contracts under the Integrated Results-Based Management System, continuing with all permanent secretaries, but adding all cabinet ministers, all CEOs of local authorities, all CEOs of state-owned enterprises and all vice-chancellors of universities,” a statement from the Zimbabwe Office of the President and Cabinet reads.

“It is in our interests to know exactly where our taxes are going towards the development of our country. Civil servants are there to serve us and deliver on the promises made by His Excellency, President Dr ED Mnangagwa when he came into power, committing to a goal of making Zimbabwe a prosperous and empowered, upper middle-income society by 2030,” according to the statement.

What criteria will be used?

Vice-chancellors are expected to be rated on indicators related to the Education 5.0 model that Mnangagwa introduced.

This model focuses on five core areas: innovation, industrialisation, research, teaching and community service.

Before Mnangagwa came to power, the system was known as Education 3.0, focusing on teaching, research and community service and there were not innovation and industrialisation elements.

Now, every university is required to have innovation hubs, with the government saying institutions of higher learning must churn out job creators and not just job seekers. These are some of the elements the vice-chancellors will be rated on.

For the past three years, the treasury has been releasing funds to set up innovation hubs at institutions of higher learning, including at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), the Midlands State University, the University of Zimbabwe, the Harare Institute of Technology, Zimbabwe National Defence University and Chinhoyi University of Technology.

Completion of infrastructure for the hubs at the tertiary institutions is at different stages.

Last month, NUST, for instance, received funds from the government and procured a COVID-19 reagents manufacturing machine. The university will, in the coming months, start making polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, kits that are expected to cut the cost of COVID-19 testing in the country by more than 60%.

Under the Education 5.0 programme, NUST now also has the leading DNA analysis laboratory in Zimbabwe, harnessing state-of-the-art infrastructure and advanced techniques to deliver high quality services in human, livestock, crop variety and pathogen identification.

Police and government agencies are increasingly resorting to NUST to solve problems, including working to identify Zimbabwean victims of Cyclone Idai, who were swept to Mozambique.

Similarly, these types of achievements by institutions are expected to be considered when their vice-chancellors are evaluated.

In an interview, Joram Gumbo, the minister of state for presidential affairs in charge of implementation and monitoring, said university programmes that are being monitored fall under 100-day cycles to ensure delivery.

“The manufacturing of sanitisers by universities, campus radio stations that are coming on board and other plants, are part of these initiatives. All those programmes will be under the government’s 100-day programme.

“Under the cycle, each and every ministry has a minimum of about five projects that it must undertake in 100 days,” he said.

The execution of the projects will also be factored into the performance process of state employees.