Iran Offers Zimbabwe 1 000 Scholarships
The Islamic Republic of Iran has offered 1 000 educational scholarships for Zimbabweans with the first batch of students set to start their studies before the end of this year.
The programme will target lecturers from polytechnics and industrial colleges who will undergo six-month courses as trainers of trainers.
The offer comes after Vice President Constantino Chiwenga recently led a Zimbabwe delegation that participated at the second Iran-Africa International Economic Conference.
Speaking to The Herald, Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Permanent Secretary Fanuel Tagwira, said:
We believe in action. We believe in implementation and we have learnt a lot since coming here. Several things have happened. With the partnership we now have with Iran, they have offered us 1,000 scholarships for our education.
We sat down and went through their training centre and we saw what they are providing and as we go home, we are going to mobilise so that we can send the first batch of our teachers who are in polytechnics and industrial colleges to come here and acquire skills for six months then they will become trainers.
This is a training of trainers and for each discipline, we will send a batch of 12 people to make a full class so that they can teach them in English and they will acquire the skills and after six months they go back and train others.
We have met with their Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation and as we discussed with them, we already have a memorandum of understanding with them and they are saying let’s move.
Our first step is establishing a steering committee that will be responsible for agreeing on the programmes that we want to work on.
Iran has made significant strides in science and technology despite facing international sanctions for almost half a century.
Both Iran and Zimbabwe face United States of America sanctions, which have prompted them to seek alternative avenues for economic growth and cooperation.
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