Zimbabwe

Many students pursue tertiary education in teachers' training colleges and over 300 technical training institutions. Up until 1956, when the University College of Salisbury (University of Zimbabwe) was established, higher education was sought outside the country. As of 2001, there were 11 universities in the nation, both state-run and privately owned. Some former colleges have been transformed into universities. While the average stay at the university is four years, many colleges and technical institutions provide training that ranges from one year to three years. Depending on the program, the minimum entry requirements for the universities are five O-levels or at least A-level passes in two subjects, including English. Admission into a university or college is highly competitive. In 1997 there were 46,495 students attending institutions of higher education. Universities offer various diplomas at both the undergraduate and the graduate level in fields such as agriculture, sociology, social work, medicine, commerce, arts, English, education, engineering, science, law, veterinary science, and social studies.

The Zimbabwean government plays a major role in higher education by influencing policy, funding, establishing programs, and determining curricula, especially in agricultural, teachers', and polytechnic colleges, which are operated through the government's administrative structure. The government approves or establishes schools and colleges and influences or determines who teaches in them. University councils, through university senates and faculty boards, govern their campuses, but the University of Zimbabwe traditionally monitors the quality of higher education throughout the country and approves syllabi for polytechnics and teachers' colleges. The University of Zimbabwe and a teacher's association started in 1950, the Associate College Center, supervise teacher education through a program that has been extended to cover only degree programs at polytechnics. Universities assume multiple roles concerning education, research, supervision, and extension course. The extension and supervisory roles are fairly nontraditional ones in which universities regularly offer courses to the general public in various areas of expertise. The courses include solar energy, gardening, and so forth. While the teachers' colleges have strong ties to their major employer—the government—agricultural and polytechnic colleges traditionally have strong ties with the farming industry and manufacturing, trade, and commerce respectively. Many universities have ties with all sectors, and most have a variation of a joint industry-university committee that caters to both the workforce and program needs of industry and the university.

Although foreign students are found in all faculties, the majority of them are found in engineering, veterinary science, and medicine. Universities select teaching faculty through selection boards chaired by the vicechancellor or pro-vice-chancellor, the dean, the deputy dean, and the chairperson of the department in question. Graduate study is provided by many of the universities in Zimbabwe. These are classified into those that provide coursework and a thesis program leading to master's degrees in arts, science, or business, and those that provide research-only degrees, such as doctoral degrees (which are called D.Phil. degrees). Admission requirements for master's programs are an undergraduate degree in a specified area, and the doctoral admission requirements are an earned master's in a particular area of specialization. Master's degrees take from one to three years, while doctoral degrees take a minimum of two to three years, depending on whether a student is part-time or full-time.

Vocational Education: Polytechnic and technical institutions represent another major sector of higher education. Because of the stagnant economy's inability to absorb new workers since the 1980s, and because of general unemployment, there has been a greater need to impart and expand technical, vocational, accounting, and management skills education in secondary schools and through tertiary education. Thus business and technical education was introduced at secondary school level as an extension of the general education curriculum, with subject kits distributed to schools lacking in workshop facilities. Each school has different specialties, such as automotive, civil, building, electrical, mechanical, or production engineering; agriculture; printing; graphic arts; teaching; business education; technology; science; mass communications; library and information science; computer science; hotel management; commerce, and adult education. Each school's main purpose is to equip graduates with effective job skills to create a trained workforce comprised of individuals eager to help the economy by working or starting a small business.