University of Zimbabwe
The University of Zimbabwe is a public university in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was opened in 1952 as the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and was initially affiliated with the University of London. It was later renamed the University of Rhodesia, and adopted its present name upon Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. UZ is the oldest university in Zimbabwe.
The university has eleven faculties covering Agriculture Environment and Food Systems, Arts and Humanities, Business Management Sciences and Economics, Computer Engineering Informatics and Communications, Education, Engineering and Built Environment, Law, Science, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Veterinary Sciences and Medicine and Health Sciences. It offers a wide variety of degree programmes and many specialist research centres and institutes. The university is accredited through the National Council for Higher Education, under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education. English is the language of instruction.
The university faced criticism for awarding fraudulent degrees to members of the Robert Mugabe regime, most notably First Lady Grace Mugabe; after Robert Mugabe was removed from power, the vice-chancellor was dismissed over the scandal.
History
Background
In 1945, Manfred Hodson formed the Rhodesia University Association, inspired by the promise of £20,000 by Robert Jeffrey Freeman for establishing such a university. The following year, the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly adopted a motion proposed by Hodson for the establishment of a university college to serve the needs of Southern Rhodesia and neighbouring territories. The Governor of Southern Rhodesia established the Rhodesia University Foundation Fund in 1947. The Legislative Assembly accepted an offer of land in Mount Pleasant from the City of Salisbury for the construction of the campus in 1948. Four years later a bill was enacted for the incorporation and constitution of the university. First classes began for some 68 students on a temporary site at 147 Baker Avenue. Independent of the initiatives of Hodson and the Legislative Assembly, the Central African Council's Commission on Higher Education, led by Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders, recommended the establishment of a university college to serve the newly established Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, with its first preference being to integrate with the Southern Rhodesian initiative.Establishment
Construction began on the Mount Pleasant site, funded by grants from both the British Government and the Government of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; other grants came from Anglo American Corporation, the British South Africa Company, the Rhodesia Selection Trust, the Beit Trust, the Ford Foundation and the Dulverton Trust, and in July 1953 Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother laid the foundation stone. In 1955, the British Government formally adopted the institution, establishing the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland by Royal Charter. The college was admitted to the privilege of Special Relation with the University of London the following year, and in 1957 all activities were transferred to the Mount Pleasant campus. The following year the college was granted pieces of land upon which the college farm and the Lake Kariba Research Station were constructed. In 1963 the [|Medical School] opened and was affiliated to the University of Birmingham. After the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the University College continued as an independent institution of higher education and research, open to all races. In 1970 a phased termination of the associations with the Universities of London and Birmingham began.Post independence
Following Zimbabwe's independence after the Rhodesian Bush War, the university was renamed University of Zimbabwe in 1980. In 1981, the first black principal, Walter Kamba, was appointed and in 1982 the royal charter was replaced by an act of Parliament. Student numbers rose from 1,000 in 1980 to 2,000 by 1985. In December 1998, the university hosted the Eighth Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The Assembly, the WCC's chief governing body, met in the Great Hall on the UZ campus.On 5 October 1989, thousands of students at the university gathered to protest the arrests of two student leaders. Hundreds of riot police arrived, clashing with the protestors, several of whom were injured and more than 50 of whom were arrested and faced up to five years in prison. By noon that day, all of the university's 8,000 students were ordered to leave campus, and riot police arrived, blocking entrances to campus and preventing students from entering.
The University of Zimbabwe Act was controversially amended in 1990, giving the government more powers and, according to many faculty, students and observers, attacking academic freedom. The late 1980s and most of the 1990s saw a rise in student protest, resulting in several closures and mass expulsions. Despite the ongoing tensions, the university continued to grow and the student population had reached 8,000 by 1995 and 10,139 by 2001. As the 2000s began, the university struggled to meet lecturers' and professors' expectations on salary levels, leading to numerous strikes. Many donors, including the Government of Sweden, which had previously been a major financer of UZ, cut or cancelled their aid. As the economic crisis grew in Zimbabwe, UZ began to fail to recruit lecturers and professors to fill vacancies. By 2007, the shortage of staff was preventing the teaching and examination of some programmes. Problems with water and electricity supply, as well as maintenance of infrastructure became critical by the late 2000s. The decline of UZ culminated in the university's failure to re-open for the 2008–2009 academic year. The university briefly opened in early 2009, but no classes were held due to strike action by lecturers. The institution was closed again in late February, following demonstrations by students against new, hard currency fees.
Controversy over fraudulent degrees
The university has faced criticism for awarding a fraudulent degree to a member of the Mugabe regime; in 2014, Grace Mugabe was given a doctorate in sociology, only two months after being registered on the programme, although a dissertation does not exist in the university archives. On 20 November 2017, the University of Zimbabwe students boycotted writing exams citing that the former first lady Grace Mugabe's controversial PhD should be revoked. They also protested and declared that they would not write examinations until Robert Mugabe resigned. The 93 year old leader and then chancellor of the university resigned the following afternoon on 21 November 2017 as head of state and government. Many claimed that the University of Zimbabwe's students will go down in history as those who gave the Mugabe regime the 'final push' of his 37-year reign as Zimbabwe's leader.Campus
The main campus of the University of Zimbabwe is located in the affluent Mount Pleasant suburb in northern Harare. The campus spans in the southern part of Mount Pleasant, forming the main portion of a special section of land reserved for educational purposes located between Mount Pleasant Drive, Upper East Road, Churchill Avenue, and Teviotdale Road. Other institutions located within this zone include the Ministry of Education Audio-Visual Centre, Mount Pleasant School, and the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council headquarters. There are 171 buildings on the main campus, including academic facilities, all but two of the student [|residence] halls, and much of the staff housing. The main campus also features sporting facilities and the College Green, a grassy space located near the centre of campus close to the academic buildings that is a popular site for social events. Roughly a third of the campus is a seasonal wetland that is unsuitable for construction and remains undeveloped.In addition to the Mount Pleasant campus, the university has facilities in several different locations throughout Zimbabwe. In Harare alone, UZ has 46 buildings located outside the Mount Pleasant campus. The university's main satellite campus, is located at the Parirenyatwa Hospital in central Harare, houses the College of Health Sciences. Besides the medical school, additional university properties within Harare include blocks of flats for staff and student housing in The Avenues, Avondale, and Mount Pleasant. Outside Harare, UZ has facilities in Bulawayo, Kariba, and Teviotdale. The university operates the Lake Kariba Research Station, located in the Nyamhunga suburb of Kariba, Mashonaland West, as well as the University of Zimbabwe Farm, also known as Thornpark Estate, which lies approximately 8 kilometers away from the Mount Pleasant campus, on Mazowe Road in Teviotdale, Mazowe District, Mashonaland Central. The farm, in size, is used by the UZ Faculty of Agriculture for teaching and research. Several of Zimbabwe's newer universities began as colleges and satellite campuses of UZ, such as Bindura University of Science Education, Chinhoyi University of Technology, and Zimbabwe Open University.
Academics
Undergraduate
The basic format of undergraduate learning at UZ is lectures, by professors or lecturers and tutorials by lecturers of teaching assistants. Many programmes also have laboratory-based practical work and field schools. Tests and assignments on course content are graded for a theory coursework grade. Practical work, where applicable, is graded for a practical coursework grade. Theory, and in some cases practical, examinations are administered.The degree programmes follow the Course Unit model, and in many programmes it is possible for students to select some of the courses from a range of options. Honours degrees have a compulsory project course that the students must complete individually, with different projects carried out by each student.
The undergraduate programmes offered lead to Bachelor, Bachelor and Intercalated bachelor's degrees. Registered bachelor's degree programmes are in arts, business studies and computer science, tourism and hospitality management, education, adult education, science education, nursing science, science, social work, dental surgery, medicine and surgery and veterinary science. Registered undergraduate Bachelor programmes are in agriculture, agricultural engineering, applied environmental science, arts, accountancy, business studies, law, engineering, mining engineering, surveying, medical laboratory sciences, nursing science, pharmacy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, science, economics, politics and administration, psychology, rural and urban planning, and sociology. Registered intercalated programmes are in anatomy, human physiology, veterinary anatomy, veterinary physiology and veterinary biochemistry.