Optimising continued dialogue between tertiary institutions and the ICT industry in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The need for continued dialogue between academic institutions and the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry in Zimbabwe cannot be overemphasized. The two major stakeholders in the tertiary institution-industry collaborative effort in moulding the human resource base in Zimbabwe need to maintain continued dialogue in order to harmonize their efforts in achieving their main objective: Producing a highly skilled, well-equipped and competitive human resource base. This study aimed at analysing the current communication scenario between universities and the ICT industry in Zimbabwe, thereby identifying the strengths and weaknesses thereof and then making recommendations on how the weaknesses may be improved while optimising the strengths. The study revealed that, if put to good use, the continued dialogue between the two major stakeholders could benefit a lot and, more importantly, this would result in the production of versatile graduates who are both theoretically and practically well equipped.