**Abstract**

Through face-to-face interviews with lecturers, this research explores the relevance of new higher education approaches in Zimbabwe, particularly Education 5.0 and virtual learning environments (VLEs). The interviewees are lecturers in the Department of Creative Art and Design (DCAD), School of Art and Design (SAD), Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT), Zimbabwe. Purposive sampling was used to pick interviewees based on their knowledge and experience in higher education teaching and learning. The main finding suggests that the five missions of Education 5.0 are not new in higher education and training in the country. Thus, lecturers do not perceive the policy as new; however, the means and ways in which it is delivered to learners in the COVID-19 era are novel. The hype around Education 5.0 coming from the Second Republic government is factory made and politically calculated. In addition, it is difficult to underpin the development given the economic problems the country is currently facing. This research also finds that VLEs cannot be efficiently and effectively used in Zimbabwe's education sector because the country still lags behind the world order of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, interviewees were of the view that teaching and learning through virtual means and ways is not different from the old face-to-face model.

**Keywords:** Second Republic, curriculum, virtual learning, education 5.0, teaching
