C J Matembo, Senior Information Officer, SIRDC

The recently launched SIRTECH Investments (Pvt) Ltd, a joint venture company between SIRDC and FINTRUST, hosted a workshop for science teachers in the Harare Province on January 31, 2006. At the workshop, SIRTECH presented its Science Laboratory and Teaching Equipment (SLATE) project. The participants turned out in large numbers, a sign of interest in, and the importance the schools attach to, the project that is set to revolutionise the teaching of science in Zimbabwe.

The SLATE product portfolio currently includes a power supply unit and four digital bench instruments: ammeter, voltmeter, thermometer and an auto-ranging stop clock. Plans are underway to develop other products and expand the SLATE product range to include microscope slides, anatomical models, laboratory chemicals, enzymes, laboratory animal and plant specimens, retort stands, optical benches, test tube racks, meter bridges, potentiometers, electromagnets, tripod stands, pH meters, calorimeters, sine wave inverters, automatic weather station, process and event timers and an electronic weighing balance. These products are at different stages of development with some nearing the prototype stage.

The goal of the SLATE project is to support the education sector by providing affordable science laboratory and teaching equipment. Well-equipped laboratories create an improved and conducive environment for the teaching of science and the learning process becomes practical oriented as it should be ideally.

Welcoming the participants, SIRDC Chief Executive Officer who is also the and Interim Chief Executive Officer for SIRTECH, Dr Robson Mafoti said that he was excited to see such a large number of science teachers. He highlighted the importance of teachers in education saying that the professional scientists at SIRDC were making all these achievements because of the education they received from teachers, adding that without teachers SIRDC would “cease and desist”.

Dr Mafoti told the science teachers that SIRTECH made the science teaching equipment to make their job easier. The SLATE products are competitively priced to make them affordable to all schools.

Commenting on the commercialization route that SIRDC has embarked on, Dr Mafoti said that the Centre needed to generate more revenue to equip the research labs, grow the business and create more employment. He said that SIRDC jealously guards the technologies it develops and that to commercialise these technologies, the Centre is identifying the right partners who share the same vision and national agenda.

Speaking at the same occasion, Engineer Fred Gweme, the Director of SIRDC’s Electronics and Communications Institute (ECI), said that his institute has a passion for assisting the education sector, especially in enhancing the teaching of science. Eng Gweme made a very bold statement and invited schools to bring to ECI all the problems that hamper their teaching of science so that ECI could devise and offer solutions. ECI is the institute that developed the SLATE product range and will continue with product improvement as dictated by the market.

The General Manager of the SLATE Division of SIRTECH, Dr Xavier Carelse, then presented the SLATE project to the participants. There was no doubt that the project was very close to his heart as he spoke passionately about it. Dr Carelse was a very active member of the SLATE development team.

Dr Carelse said that SLATE was first for Africa as there is no similar project of the SLATE magnitude in Africa. He added that SLATE was an entirely Zimbabwean initiative developed and funded by Zimbabweans. The strategy behind SLATE is rooted in import substitution. Hitherto the coming on stream of the SLATE project, almost all science laboratory and teaching equipment were being imported at a great cost to the nation. All SADC region countries to some extent also import science teaching equipment. Thus, there is an enormous export potential of the SLATE products in the SADC region and indeed the whole of Africa.

After the SLATE powerpoint presentation the ECI staff demonstrated the functionality of the equipment to their visibly impressed audience.