Midlands State University

Midlands State University is a government owned university in Zimbabwe. The university has nine faculties (Agriculture, Arts, Commerce, Education, Engineering, Law, Science, Social Sciences and Medicine) offering a wide variety of courses and many specialist programmes. The university is accredited through the National Council for Higher Education, under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education of Zimbabwe.The main campus is located in Gweru the third largest city in Zimbabwe.The university adopted a multi campus system therefore it has a satellite campus in the mining of town of Zvishavane and other campuses located in the city of Gweru.HistoryThe idea of a university in the Midlands dates back to the foundation of the National University of Science and Technology when Gweru, which was identified as a possible site for a second university campus in the country, lost its bid to Bulawayo. Two other opportunities to host institutions of higher learning (the Open University and the Catholic University) were also missed by the Midlands Province, when the two universities went to Harare. It was in the midst of such disappointments that two initiatives converged to give birth to what has since become the Midlands State University. The President R G Mugabe, on the nudging of the provincial political leadership of the Midlands, accepted the idea of a national university being built in the Midlands. This coincided with the then Ministry of Higher Education and Technology's policy of devolution, which was aimed at expanding access to higher education by converting teachers and technical colleges into degree granting institutions. It was through the process of devolution that beginning in 1998 Gweru Teachers College started to enrol students studying for the Bachelor of Commerce with Education and the Bachelor of Science with Education degrees offered by the University of Zimbabwe.In the meantime, although the devolution policy inaugurated an irrevocable process of bringing university education to the Midlands, there was a strong feeling, especially in the Province, that what was being done did not quite amount to the President's promise of a fully fledged state university in the province. Responding to these feelings, but without losing sight of constraints imposed on Government by declining national funds, the Minister of Higher Education and Technology transformed the devolution project at Gweru into Zimbabwe's third state university by means of the State University in the Midlands Act of April 1999.