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Government to impose Chinese on universities
Godfrey Mutimba, The Standard (Zimbabwe)
January 22, 2006

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/read.php?path=./news/2006/January/Sunday22/&st_id=648

University students around the country should brace themselves for the tongue-twisting and difficult to write Mandarin (Chinese language), as government wants to introduce it as part of its controversial "Look East" policy, The Standard has learnt. Zimbabwe embarked on the widely derided "Look East" policy after falling out with its former European trading partners.

Speaking at an international conference of the transformation of Masvingo State University to Great Zimbabwe National University, Higher and Tertiary Education minister, Stan Mudenge, said the government intends to offer a curriculum that will see students from all universities in the country taking Chinese in a bid to promote tourism and trade between the two countries. Mudenge revealed that he had already held meetings aimed at making this a reality. He said: "At a recent meeting I held in Paris with my counterpart the Chinese minister of education, we agreed to intensify our programmes in the field of education, cultural exchange programmes including language training.

"The compelling need to bring our two peoples together could be strengthened by introducing studies e.g. teaching of Chinese as a foreign language as well as learning Chinese history. Our universities have an important role in this regard." He ordered vice chancellors from various universities that attended the conference to make frantic efforts to introduce the subject before year-end.

Great Zimbabwe National University vice chancellor, Professor Obert Maravanyika, heeded Mudenge's call and vowed to introduce the programme "soon". He also revealed that his institution would lead other universities in introducing such programmes including other minority languages such as Venda and Shangani in August this year.

Meanwhile, Mudenge admitted that higher education standards during the colonial era were by far much better than those being experienced during the post-independence period. He said that the standards of education had drastically dropped leading to the continuous churning out of poor quality products which he called "maNose brigades or maSalads" and blamed institutions for the skewed enrolment towards men. "Since the girl students coming out of 'A' level may be relatively few, universities should consider experience and mature entry or bridging courses among other schemes for women. Even in the days of Ian Smith there was mature age entry scheme to enable more Africans to enter the University of Rhodesia. Some Cabinet ministers and professors in Cabinet and university today benefited from the scheme," he said.

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