GOVERNMENT has unwittingly admitted failure to contain the brain drain mostly in the public sector.
The brain drain has been high, particularly in the health and education sectors where professionals are earning paltry salaries of less than US$300 plus a local currency component.
Speaking in Parliament, Higher and Tertiary Education minister Aaron Murwira on Wednesday struggled to answer questions on how government plans to resolve the brain drain. Murwira said what Zimbabwe is facing is no longer a brain drain but rather brain circulation
“We will continue cooking our people in our higher and tertiary education institutions. Hativapedzi, ticharamba tichi trainer vanhu to the extent that these days what they call brain drain is actually brain circulation because we can still use our people wherever they are,” he said.
Murwira admitted that most graduates were also leaving the country or roaming the streets without jobs.
“Sometimes we have been confronted with a question which says, why are you training them when they are going to the streets? They will not go to the street when they have the correct design of education,” he said.
“Also, how to provide them with the venture fund so that they have the finances. So, it tells us of a whole new philosophy of how we want our country to be today and into the future. We shall not construct people who work for other people. We will construct people who work for their country, for themselves.”
A recent Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency third quarter labour force survey report released this week showed that unemployment had increased to 21%, with national unemployment now standing at 47,8%.
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“‘We will train people and we are also changing the philosophy of why we go to school. We go to school to be trained to be able to do what we were trained for. We go to school in order to be able to use our knowledge and skills and attitudes to start new enterprises. We go to school not to be used by the ones who are already established in industry. We go to school in order to use ourselves to work for ourselves,” Murwira said.
Recent data from South Africa also revealed a staggering increase in Zimbabwean immigrants, reaching 1,01 million in 2022, up from 672 308 in 2011.
“This is a deep philosophy which diverts from the philosophy of going to school to be employed by the colonial master, kuzvishandira, kwete kushandiswa. It, therefore, means what we are talking about in terms of brain drain; sometimes people call it brain drain. Brain drain assumes that the pot which is cooking people has stopped cooking,” Murwira said.
Teacher unions estimates that the country has a shortage of at least 50 000 teachers.
