Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Professor Amon Murwira says the country needs people with innovation and skills to unlock job opportunities and take the country out of its poverty.
Speaking during the 7th edition of National Disability Expo in Bulawayo on Friday which ran under the theme ‘Ensuring inclusion and empowerment of persons with disability through innovation and technology”, Prof Murwira said the country cannot complain of high unemployment rate when most critical services are in short supply.
“We cannot say there are no jobs in a country where people are importing food, exporting patients to other countries, in a country with roads with potholes, in a country where there is no electricity and, in a country, where disabled people do not have wheelchairs.
“What I am trying to say is if we are not careful it is very unpalatable but I think it is very palatable what we need is skill, ability, technology and innovation. When we have those abilities we will create occupations for our self,” Prof. Murwira said.
“Employment is a function of skill, not a function on being, Jobs do not fall from the sky, disabled or the so-called abled people which I do not think they are able, need capacity and ability”.
The minister said there was a need for a mindset shift so that people can see new opportunities for creating employment.
“People should step out of the history that is holding them back and step into the new story that we are creating, our future is in science, technology and innovation and also consciousness just to know what you can do and you concentrate on that,” he said.
“When we harvest from consciousness this world will move, I want to encourage our scientist and technologists to say the day that science begins to study non-physical phenomenal is the day that it will make progress.”
He said it is people’s ability that will take the country out of its poverty.
“Indeed, this theme falls under President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s call for human capacity-based development of this country through the fact that it is our ability which will take us out of this poverty,” he said.
“I am refusing to say there are people who cannot do anything, we have said everybody is a genius but if you expect a fish to climb a tree then you will make it think that it is stupid for the rest of its life, do not expect people to do what they cannot do let them do what they can do best no matter whether they are blind, on a wheel chair or deaf I have said the biggest ability is consciousness.”
