Executive Director, Quality Assurance and Professional Development Directorate
Professor Emmanuel Chabata
Emmanuel Chabata is the Executive Director for Quality Assurance and Professional Development (QA & PD), at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ). He is a Professor of Linguistics and holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Oslo, Norway. He obtained a Master of Arts, a Bachelor of Arts Special Honours and a Bachelor of Arts General degree from the UZ. He joined the UZ as a Teaching Assistant in 1997, became a permanent Research Fellow in 2000, a Senior Research Fellow in 2012, an Associate Research Professor in 2015 and a Full Professor in 2024. He was the Acting Director at the African Languages Research Institute from 2012 to 2020. He became the Academic Programmes Specialist in the QA & PD Directorate in 2020 and later became the Acting Executive Director of the same Directorate in June 2023 and the Executive Director in October 2023.
His current area of research and work is Quality Assurance and Professional Development in Higher Education where he has made significant contributions institutionally, nationally and regionally. For example, in his capacity as the Quality Assurance - Academic Programmes Specialist, and together with colleagues in the Directorate, he spearheaded preparations for accreditation of the UZ’s new academic programmes with the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (ZIMCHE) in 2020. He also led preparations and processes leading to the re-accreditation of UZ by ZIMCHE in December 2023. He has facilitated at numerous quality assurance workshops within the UZ, some of which include programme development and module designing, induction of new lecturers, development of standard operating procedures and Education 5.0 innovative teaching and learning methodologies. He has also participated in some of ZIMCHE activities, including being a peer reviewer and Team leader in institutional and academic audits.
His other research interests are in Lexicography, Terminology Development, Computational Linguistics, Translation, Onomastics and Language Planning and Policy where he has done a lot of practical work and published widely. He has also been a visiting scholar and external examiner at various local, regional and international universities, some of which include the Midlands State University and Zimbabwe Open University in Zimbabwe, University of Botswana, University of Zambia, University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, University of Namibia, Tswane University of Technology, University of Pretoria, University of Witwatersrand and University of Zululand in South Africa, University of Oslo in Norway, Renmin University of China, Northeast Normal University in China and University of Wisconsin in the United States of America.
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Executive Personal Assistant
Ms Shumirai Magurecha
Ms Magurecha is a holder of a BSc. Social Work (UZ), Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work (UZ), BSc (Hons) in Political Science (UZ) and Diploma in Secretarial Studies (Pitman). She joined the UZ as a Secretary (Faculty of Business Management Sciences and Economics) in 2009, became an Office Manager, Academic Registry (Student Enrolment and Registration) in 2018. She became the Executive Personal Assistant, Quality Assurance and Professional Development, in 2023.
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Quality Assurance Manager - Training
Professor Ruth B Gora
Professor Ruth B Gora is a holder of PhD, MEd and BEd degrees and a Certificate in Education. She is an experienced educator having taught in schools and at a teacher training college before joining the University of Zimbabwe as a Lecturer in 2005, risen to Senior Lecturer in 2014 and then Associate Professor in 2023.
She has held posts of responsibility at the UZ as Chairperson of Department, Deputy Dean, Proctor and now Quality Assurance Manager - Training.
Professor Gora participated in the following significant stints: (a) SADC - Internal Quality Assurance training programme with the University of Potsdam (Germany) from 2020 to 2021; (b) Capacity Development for Agenda 2030 for Universities in Zambia and Zimbabwe, with Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development, Uppsala University (Sweden) in 2019; (c) Training in, and tutoring of, Course Design and Assessment of Outcome-based Learning in Higher Education, TUNING AFRICA II Project with Deusto University (Spain) from 2016 to 2018; (d) Refinement of the Assessment Framework for the competence-based curriculum in Zimbabwe, with Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in 2019.
Whilst her current area of research and work is Quality Assurance and Human Capital Development, her main areas of research and specialisation are Language Education, Curriculum Issues and Pedagogy, Language-in-Education Policy, Language and Gender, IKSs and Education for Sustainable Development where she has published widely and presented papers at regional and international fora. She is also an External Examiner in some national and regional universities.
In her current capacity as the QA Manager - Training, together with colleagues in the Directorate, she has facilitated at numerous QA workshops within the UZ, some of which include: Training of Teaching Assistants; Induction of New Lecturers; & Education 5.0 Innovative Teaching and Learning Methodologies.
Outside the academic space, she volunteers at the Forum for African Women Educationalists Zimbabwe Chapter [FAWEZI], an organisation that supports girls and women to acquire education for development; she is the current Chairperson of its National Executive Committee and served as Vice Chairperson in the previous board. She is also an English-Shona-English interpreter and translator for community development programmes.
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Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is understood as a measure of the value of what we do and the system of benchmarks which we use to ensure that academic business (teaching and learning, research, and community service) is of the expected standard and is maintained and improved on a continuous basis.
About the Directorate
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The Quality Assurance Directorate exists for the purpose of systematic monitoring and evaluation, and ensuring that mechanisms are in place, and are functional to ensure that standards are being met.
To this end, the Directorate inter-alia:
- provides leadership for quality assurance and good practice in the University
- monitors implementation of quality assurance policies in the University.
- monitors achievement of set benchmarks to provide useful feedback to faculties
- advises Senate on how the system is performing with regards to quality and suggests improvements
- ensures that programmes comply with ZIMCHE guidelines
- analyses student evaluation data and generates reports for both quality and management purposes.
The University community can refer to the following Quality Assurance Handbooks: