THE country’s higher education sector has been hit hard by a debilitating brain-drain with most of the major state-run universities understood to be experiencing severe staff shortages while infrastructure is said to be in a state of general decay.

A recent report to the parliamentary education committee showed that science departments in Zimbabwe's universities have been hardest hit by the brain drain as staff left in search of better conditions of service.

The report said that at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), the departments of animal science, community medicine, metallurgy and clinical pharmacology require 20, 18, 13 and 11 lecturers respectively - but have nobody in post.

Computer science and veterinary sciences both require 13 lecturers but have only one each. Psychiatry, geo-informatics and mining engineering also have one lecturer each but require 16, 10 and eight respectively.

Again the department of medicine has eight lectures but needs 26 while the anaesthetics, statistics, anatomy and haematology departments each have two lecturers instead of 16, 11, 10 and eight respectively.

The parliamentary committee heard that the shortages at the UZ mirror the precarious situation in all state-run higher education institutions.

"Academics are in short supply at the institution. University infrastructure is dilapidated and this includes lecturer theatres, halls of residence and dining halls. The university fleet is grounded.

"The government needs to priorities higher education in the fiscus for universities to not only be fully operational, but to also ensure better conditions for staff," the committee said.

The economic decline experienced over the last decade induced a massive flight of human capital from the country.

Many of those who left were Zimbabwe's most skilled and mobile people including academics and university administrators.

And as the situation worsened, the University of Zimbabwe was closed for almost a year because of a long lecturer strike and infrastructural problems.

Meanwhile, a call by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for Zimbabweans to return home and help rebuild the country was received with scepticism by the large diaspora community.

In addition, the constant political bickering between the country’s coalition partners and the lack of progress in implementing reforms have further undermined confidence among non-resident Zimbabweans that the country is about to turn the corner.