Interviewee 2 said:

*So, the issue of innovation is about problem solving. When you innovate, you are solving problems. Problems are solved by people who create new ideas, and these ideas are turned into products and services. They may eventually be mass produced, thus saving the communities. They solve problems that are faced by the communities... so as the five pillars: teaching, research, community service, innovation and industrialisation.*

The preceding sentiments present the interest of the dogma of Education 5.0 as a panacea to the practical deficit that has been inherited in most universities in Zimbabwe since colonial times. It is argued that innovation and industrialisation are ideal missions that can facilitate teaching and learning in HEIs. Beyond the two comments from Interviewees 1 and 2, generally, Education 5.0 is glorified by HEI educators because it allows the application of theoretical content to produce tangible goods and services. The teachers interviewed feel that teaching and learning should not end with the articulation of bookish text, as that translates to a waste of time in the process. Rather, book learning should be transformed into real products that can be put on the market for sale. Production of new goods and services through the facilitation of creativity, innovation, and industrialisation in the higher education and training sector may possibly bail out emerging economies like Zimbabwe's from local and international debt. This, in a way, agrees with [3]'s view that postmodern curriculum reforms have had a significant influence on the development of higher education and training. Hence, [3, 14] have observed that the up-to-date curriculum is a "curriculum-in-action" as it mutates.

It was discovered that students need to be given a hands-on education that sustains their lives in the long run. In addition, failure to nurture higher education students in ways that equip them with practical skills will intensify global economic problems. This explains the need to modernise our societies via collaboration and comprehensive curriculum reform with the intention of identifying problems and providing solutions. That means new ideas are brought up in the process of teaching and learning, which has a propensity to lead to economic development. This is unlike the third generation of education that did not include creativity, innovation, and industrialisation as key elements in higher education and training. That shows how

#### *Relevance of New Higher Education Approaches in Zimbabwe's 'Second Republic' DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99934*

the Zimbabwean higher education curriculum was contrary to Bloom's taxonomy. It only short-changed the learners. The (revised) Bloom's taxonomy states that the purpose of higher education and training is to gain cognitive abilities and affective and psychomotor skills, which was not the case with the precursor to Education 5.0. Within the context of a three-tier education philosophy, Zimbabwean higher education learners suffer from limited post-graduate practical skills, which have become the cornerstone of modern-day industry. This identifies with the views [3, 5, 18] that the 21st-century curriculum reforms try to promote creativity, innovation, and commercialisation through higher education experience.

The DCAD lecturers aspire to produce graduates who work to solve problems in their communities. Interviewee 4, who is also a senior lecturer in the DCAD, stated:

*As an academic, what it means is that whatever we teach our students, they have to have the skills to apply — the knowledge of doing things, especially when they start to work in the industry. We have students that are going to be designers. Either way, they are going to be industrial designers or multimedia designers. So, we expect our students to have an impact wherever they go by bringing in something new wherever they will be. Whether one is a product designer or not, we expect them to be innovative in coming up with new ideas. We expect them to be creative. In particular, we expect industrial designers to come up with new products that can meet a need in society.*

However, the same interviewee also stated that Education 5.0, particularly in the DCAD at CUT, was not at all new. "Speaking as a designer, Education 5.0 is almost right in the middle of what I do. We design and come up with new innovations, whether it's multimedia design or industrial design," noted interviewee 4.

With an undertone of protest, the interviewee insinuated the non-existence of a clear education policy in Zimbabwe from independence. Creativity, innovation, and industrialisation are believed to have been embedded in the Education 3.0 philosophy, though they were not distinctively mentioned as missions of the doctrine. The interviewee further stated:

*As a concerned citizen of Zimbabwe, I would say that we have been talking about Education 5.0 from different points of view. Every minister that has come on the scene has come up with their own version of innovation and industrialisation. So, it's not new to us. We have been practicing this.*

This view attempts to highlight a pang of guilt over the lack of a national education policy in Zimbabwe. The interviewee further lamented wholesale curriculum reforms that are influenced by the need to score political goals by different political players that come and go into power in Zimbabwe, or out of the need to be different from one's predecessors, as noted earlier. Political scores are mentioned by Interviewee 4 as being prime in the way the Second Republic has been trying to govern and control the flow of higher education systems. The current regime came into power following a coup d'état in November 2017 [40, 41]. What is noble, however, is that policy, whatever its thrust, should be seen to contribute to the resolution of national problems. The interviewee also confirms the view that policy alterations are done haphazardly and with impunity in Zimbabwe.

*For example, in our department, we train our students to be innovative, whether we are talking about Education 5.0 or even if it were reminiscent of the now defunct Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) policy of Mugabe's era. The policies expect students to contribute to the nation through the* 

*work they do. In other words, how they can make an impact when they leave university. Can they be seen to be coming up with new ideas, new products, or thinking outside the box for the purpose of commercialising their ideas?*

STEM died after the "soft coup" that deposed former and late President Mugabe and was replaced by Education 5.0. However, the argument is an indirect attack on the government for failing to acknowledge publicly that some higher and tertiary institutions were the founders of Education 5.0, opting to claim parenthood of the doctrine without pity. This implies a lack of collaboration between the government and the education sector in Zimbabwe. It existed well before STEM came into force in the post-GNU. However, the interviewee bemoans the lack of a specific higher education policy in Zimbabwe that glorifies the five missions of higher education and training at once. This equally identifies with Burgess [42], who stated that curriculum reviewers should desist from the practice of calibration of teaching and learning to satisfy the control mechanisms of the day.

From all the interviews conducted, it was also discovered that innovation and industrialisation are paramount in cultivating a higher education student to become an asset in society. In simple terms, Education 5.0 is progressive. Interviewee 4 observed that sharing the skills of creativity and industrialisation with learners is essential to the success of the world as a whole and encourages innovations to be cross-pollinated. This confirms sentiments by [7], who said that innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education are the cornerstones of a holistic graduate in any given community. That takes communities to greater heights when it comes to the depth, breath, and width of creativity, production, and commercialisation of ideas that start off as academic.

Interviewee 3 observed that Education 5.0 is progressive in that:

*Innovation comes first, then industrialisation later... The thinking of Education 5.0 then says, in addition to the learning experience that produces academic knowledge, let the learning experience be able to promote innovation. In other words, let the student or learner be encouraged, or be groomed to be able to create new things. Suppose it's a module that is being taught, let it be able to usher the student into exploring ideas that are new. We are looking at the possibility of students breaking new ground by introducing products that are new. That's the dimension of innovation; products that may answer the needs of the community. So, having produced those new products, those ground-breaking inventions or ideas, then... will be industrialised.*

#### The interviewee went on to say:

*With industrialisation, other than training students to come up with researched knowledge presented in written documents and other platforms, that would make it generally academic. Education 5.0 brings in industrialisation where the learning experiences result in the production of products and goods... Let them be goods that are usable and that will attract the market, so that's the industrialisation aspect being emphasised through the (new) learning experience. Suppose there is a company that is interested in adopting that idea, technology, or whatever is produced. The company can actually be able to adopt that and produce the goods continuously.*

From the preceding arguments, it can be noted that lecturers in the DCAD are prepared to intensify teaching and learning that is bound to produce goods and

### *Relevance of New Higher Education Approaches in Zimbabwe's 'Second Republic' DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99934*

services that can be used in people's everyday lives. The views suggest that the process of creativity, innovation, and industrialisation at HEIs should be continuous if the gains of Education 5.0 are to be realised in Zimbabwe. Once a product or good or idea is developed through higher education and training, it should be patented. Thereafter, its production should not halt but needs to be constantly improved or sustained with the input of the learning institution, students, and company that would have adopted it. On the contrary, when learners graduate, they may set up their own companies or industries that produce and sell goods, breaking new ground. It is against this backdrop that higher education and training should work illustriously to provide new and competitive goods and services with the view of boosting niche or existing business lines. This again extends to the view that universities should closely work with industry in its bid to sustain high-order cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills as provided by Bloom in 1956 among graduates. The feeling agrees with [24, 43–48] as the way to go towards inculcating hands-on skills among tertiary institute graduates.

Furthermore, it was discovered by one of the interviewees that ancient or historical development education systems share similarities with Education 5.0. In the past, individuals created products such as hoes, bows, and arrows without having gone to a formal higher education setting to learn the necessary skills. This means that Education 5.0 is an undisputable extension of the IKS in Zimbabwe. IKS refers to locally based forms of knowledge production using available resources. The bond that exists between Education 5.0 and IKS was raised by Interviewee 1, who said:

*I think innovation is needed for any country or institution. Innovation is not new, as people have been innovating from the time they were put on earth. That's why we have developed countries and developing countries, and some that are in between developed and developing, because people need to grow with technology to make life easier. So we need to innovate.*

This finding suggests that countries and their education systems evolve at different times. Some countries have already introduced and benefitted from Education 5.0, while others are midway through realising the fortunes of the doctrine. The belief mimics [9]'s view that innovation and technology policy pay attention to the kinds of benefits that will inevitably be earned after the production of a commodity that genuinely solves an issue to enrich the lives of ordinary citizens. The interviewee further pointed out:

*I will take an example. Going back to the Industrial Revolution, people produced products. Had they gone through an undergraduate programme? They hadn't, but because it was within themselves. That's what we are simply doing in universities to nature and support, so that we can see results. But, if they don't produce, that's fine, because they would have at least produced something. It may not be patented, but we will see a product. We will have engaged our students to focus on the importance of production.*

These arguments by Interviewee 1 also show that Education 5.0 should not be presented as the Second Republic's creation or virgin education policy or rather a niche idea because it has roots in the primordial society, among other epochs of human development. This means that, as an educational approach, Education 5.0 is a back-to-basics teaching and learning system. The interviewee feels universities should not make a fuss about students' failure to produce something patentable at every level of learning. It is not always that students will come up with new ideas

and make products that can be put on the market, but the very fact that during teaching and learning they will have produced something useful is commendable. What is important is to ground students with real-life experience. This pinpoints what was projected by the renowned education philosopher John Dewey [27]. This means that creativity, innovation, and industrialisation should not be overly underlined through curriculum reform, but rather via the ability to develop graduates that have practical skills that can lead them to develop tangibles in the real world. The interviewee also suggested that higher education and training should not put students under pressure to produce patentable products. The same interviewee pointed out that "without the industry, you cannot process anything." From this view, it is evident that students should not just create new things for the sake of a display of their abilities but rather for the purpose of making a living out of them. This research outcome proves to be consistent with [20, 31] who proposed that the predecessor of Education 5.0, Education 3.0, pacifies higher education learners as their learning capabilities do not go beyond documented research, which does not at all avail solutions to people's problems.

Education 5.0 also helps people to appreciate the values related to hands-on education in the 21st century. Interviewee 5 noted:

*People should be taught about industry in the same way that they are taught about tourism or geography, such as the existence of Great Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls. People know there exists a company that produces specific and unique goods or services wherever they are, and that information is not in our curriculum. People just know sweets and milk, but they don't know where they are produced. They also know the Great Zimbabwe, Mosi-oa-Tunya, only theoretically. They also know the geographical sites, the heritage, and the natural sites of the country. That is what has been emphasised more in our curriculum all this time, but there has been nothing telling us about innovation and industrialisation.*

This interviewee also laments that Education 5.0 skipped the grassroots to focus solely on higher and tertiary education. The arguments complement the 2019 strategic plan pronouncements [37] from the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development (MHTESTD). It is the finding of this study that there is a need to ensure that Education 5.0 should begin at the kindergarten level. This would see students develop strong values that support innovation and entrepreneurship in their teaching and learning up the ladder. This study also shows that interaction with creativity, innovation, and industrialisation needs to be continuous in the teaching and learning cycle. The components should be designed to start with early childhood development (ECD) and progress to university. At the same time, concern should not be limited to the appreciation of access to finished goods or the use of already set up services. Generally, all forms of education should not narrow students' knowledge acquisition abilities to the existence of finished products such as milk, bread, and other goods and services. Known service places like Mosi-oa-Tunya, for example, do not at all expose students to processes that trigger and lead to production. These places have already been captured by investors who are also grappling to survive under the current global conditions. The income being realised by these businesses, for instance, has not been felt to provide solutions to the country's evolving economic problems. But through higher education, innovation, and industrialisation, the nation's economic status can be realised. This finding agrees with sentiments by [20], who observed that the Malaysian government came up with education reforms that were not exclusionary of paediatric teaching and learning.
