Published by the government of Zimbabwe
2 July 2009
Harare — The Zimbabwe Open University has signed agreements with a Botswana college and four local institutions that will see the colleges offering ZOU-accredited degrees and diplomas.
In an interview yesterday, ZOU vice chancellor Dr Primrose Kurasha said they had signed agreements with the Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning, Domboshava Theological College, Zimbabwe Theological Education by Extension College, Elephant College and the Zimbabwe Christian College.
"The intention in signing these agreements to associate with colleges was to make sure that we reach communities through them.
"Among the local colleges only Domboshava will offer ZOU accredited degrees.
"We also want church leaders and those with qualifications from these institutions to continue their studies and attain religious studies degrees which we will be offering from the 1st of August," she said.
She said the Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning was given the greenlight to offer degrees by their parent ministry, but they were not prepared to do so prompting them to approach ZOU to facilitate a way of offering joint degree programmes.
Dr Kurasha said plans were underway to offer degree programmes to Namibian students who studied in Zimbabwean teachers colleges.
"As we speak, some of our staff members are in Namibia engaging authorities from the Namibia College of Distance Learning so that we can offer joint Bachelor Degrees in Education.
"We have requests from Malawi institutions who also want to associate with us, but right now we want to develop our Information Communication Technology so that we can have a good network.
"We are going into the region so we need infrastructure and ICT support if our endeavours are to be fruitful," she said.
She said the reason they had engaged Elephant College, which offers certificates and diplomas in early childhood learning, was to complement Government efforts in developing this field of education.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Herald. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
