The University’s senior members of staff and other administrators converged at the Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration and Management (ZIPAM) in Darwendale for a Strategic Planning workshop recently. The workshop which ran from 10th to 12th January 2019 was facilitated by officials from the Public Service Commission, Mr M.P Matsenhure and Ms G.T Bhunu. The major goal of the workshop was to craft the university’s blueprint for the next five years, thus 2019-2023.
In his welcome remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Professor E. Mwenje highlighted that the university was crafting a new five year strategic plan since the old one covering 2014-2018 had expired. He commended members of staff for their efforts in implementing the old strategic plan. ‘I am confident that the university can confidently compete with other institutions in the region because of the outgoing plan which was very comprehensive,” said Professor Mwenje.
He went on to encourage the University’s staff to incorporate other crucial factors in their planning. He added that BUSE should also take cognisance of the existence of the National Skills Audit Report, Vision 2030 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, among others.
In his concluding remarks, Professor Mwenje emphasised that whatever strategy the university was going to come up with, should make BUSE one of the top three universities in Zimbabwe.
The workshop commenced with a presentation by one of the facilitators, Ms Bunhu who delved deep into the Integrated Results Based Management System (IRBM), which most public institutions are now using in planning strategically. She highlighted different but crucial IRBM components that should be used in planning including adopting the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), Results Based Budgeting, Human Resources as well as Monitoring and Evaluation.
In addition to IRBM, Ms Bhunu touched on the three levels of measuring results which are output, outcomes and impact. In her explanation, output focuses mainly on what an organisation is producing whereas outcome touches on the changes an institution would be making to the society. The last component which is impact looks at the contribution an organisation would be making at macro-level.
The other facilitator, Mr Matsenhure explored at length the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) which is a crucial national blueprint that looks at policy inconsistencies. He said TPS deals with institutional inconsistencies, systems devolution and, fiscal consolidations, among other aspects. He impressed upon BUSE staff to ensure that the new strategic plan feeds into the TSP.
Further to TSP, Mr Matsenhure also emphasized on the need to premise the BUSE plan on Vision 2030. He highlighted some of the key goals of Vision 2030 including reducing poverty rate, increasing food security, rationalizing the public service wage bill, fighting against corruption, reforming the productive sector, and, addressing micro-economic imbalances, among other factors.
The second and third day of the strategic plan workshop focused mainly on group discussions and presentations. The areas covered included overall functions of departments and their roles; key result areas; client and stakeholder identification; demand and needs analysis; outcome hierarchy analysis; strategy formulation and; the impact, outcome and output matrix.
In his closing remarks, the Registrar, Mr M.P Neusu thanked all members of staff for partaking in the crafting of the University’s strategic plan document. He was mesmerized with the progress the team made with their insightful discussions. ‘BUSE strategy should be a winner, a shaker and a mover amongst universities,’ said Mr Neusu.
Mr Neusu urged members of staff to start the implementation process of the document as soon as it gets approval from relevant authorities so that, the institution realises its vision. He also encouraged members of staff to evaluate the document frequently and encouraged the full participation of all clients and stakeholders.
Other key stakeholders who participated at the workshop were two council members, Dr G Taruvinga and Engineer T.Devera, representatives from the Robert Mugabe School of Intelligence, Workers Council Chairman, two Student Representative Council members and faculty administrators.
