BULAWAYO, (New Ziana) –Concerted collaboration between government, industry, and commerce is required to address the critical skills deficit facing the country, a Cabinet Minister said on Friday.
Skills Audit and Development Minister Paul Mavhima said this while addressing delegates attending the two-day Scholastica Expo 2025 at the Zimbabwe International Conference and Exhibition Smart City (ZICES) in Bulawayo.
The event is running under the theme, “Empowering Future Generations Through Heritage-Based Education and Innovation”.
The Expo attracted over 5 000 participants from across Zimbabwe, with close to 50 exhibitors showcasing their products and services.
Mavhima said governmental efforts alone are insufficient to close the nation’s widening skills gap.
“Bridging the skills gap in the country requires more than government, it demands collective action between government, industry, and commerce,” he said.
He said his ministry launched an extensive nationwide consultation designed to map the precise availability of skills across all economic sectors.
The findings, he explained, presented a stark and sobering picture of misalignment between graduate output and strategic national needs.
“In line with my Ministry’s mandate, we embarked on a nationwide stakeholders’ consultation to ascertain the availability of skills in the various sectors of the economy. What we discovered was profoundly sobering. We identified a significant surplus of graduates in non-strategic areas, juxtaposed with alarming shortages in fields critical to our economic growth trajectory,” he said.
Mavima said in the mining and manufacturing sectors there is a shortage of geologists, mining engineers and artisans while the agro sector has critical gaps in agronomic practices, mechanisation expertise, and agribusiness specialists.
“Our construction industry is demonstrably lacking trained surveyors, engineers, and skilled tradespeople while digital and technology, this sector contends with severe shortages of software developers, data analysts, cyber security analysts, and Artificial Intelligence(AI) practitioners,” he said.
He said beyond the skills mismatch, the consultations unearthed systemic weaknesses within the training infrastructure itself.
Many training and vocational centres suffer from inadequate infrastructure, while Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions require comprehensive modernization of workshops and facilities, he said.
“We also face a pronounced shortage of trainers within our tertiary institutions. Furthermore, where trainers are present, they are often inadequately motivated, largely due to insufficient remuneration, hindering their effectiveness in producing skilled personnel. We need to significantly up our game concerning these trainers,” he said.
New Ziana
