By Canisio Mudzimu The proliferation of universities and tertiary institutions churning out tens of thousands of graduates each year is a welcome development in the country’s quest to close the skills gap and set Zimbabwe on the right pedestal in terms of socio-economic development. However, the attainment of this overarching goal can only be enhanced when the government revamps the tertiary education system to move away from the obsession with quantity and dwell on quality and the provision of relevant, contemporary and on-demand skills that promote national development. All things being equal, the rejuvenation of tertiary education will create a pool of either highly entrepreneurial graduates or graduates who are employable to steer the country towards the attainment of Vision 2030 and other development blueprints. As the International Bureau of Education (2021) pointed out, learning is “the process that brings together personal and environmental experiences and influences for acquiring, enriching or modifying one’s knowledge, skills, values, attributes, behaviour, and worldview”. The following recommendations are meant to enhance the “5.0 system” that the government of Zimbabwe has adopted to strengthen the curriculum and change the trajectory of the education sector. Relevant skills Universities and tertiary institutions should regularly come up with programmes that respond to the ever-evolving and diverse needs of the country in particular and the world in general and enhance industry-driven programmes that seek to close the skills gap. This is the way to go in this country instead of turning tertiary institutions into museums and monuments that specialise in offering programmes that were relevant 40 years ago when letters where the most effective and preferable mode of communication. This article will not single out any specific programmes but what is important to note is that the rationale of a robust education system is to build skills that are aligned to the needs of the country as it seeks to properly equip learners for them to fit into the profile of “jobs of the future” not “jobs of the past”. Zimbabwe’s education system should not overproduce graduates in specific areas while neglecting and underserving others, especially in critical areas such as engineering and technology, since this compromises the capability of the country’s education system to meet quality parameters inasfar as manpower needs are concerned. Remove obsolete and irrelevant programmes It becomes imperative that outdated, moribund and obsolete programmes that offer little utility to the contemporary world should be restricted to the dustbins of pedagogy and curriculum as a way of avoiding “creating” graduates who sell tomatoes and airtime at street corners! I am not trying to undervalue this line of trade but my point is that tertiary education should distinctively serve its intended role — value addition. As one orator once put it, the end justifies the means and this implies that the starting point in any programme review is to look a