Great Zimbabwe University

Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) is an institution of higher learning in the city of Masvingo Zimbabwe. It is currently situated on the Masvingo Teachers’ College campus seven kilometres east of Masvingo town. A larger campus is soon to be built near the Great Zimbabwe National Monument, the namesake of the university.

One of a number of universities the government opened after independence in 1980, Great Zimbabwe University began life as the Masvingo State University (MASU).which was established through the recommendations of the 1995 Chetsanga Report. The report had proposed the devolution of teachers’ and technical colleges into degree-awarding institutions that would eventually become universities in their own right. A university college attached to the University of Zimbabwe was accordingly launched in 1999/2000. Two years later, an Act of Parliament created the autonomous Masvingo State University. The name was changed to Great Zimbabwe University two years later.

The university offers degree and diploma programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the arts, commerce, education and the sciences. The programmes are designed to be responsive to the needs of the job market in Zimbabwe’s ever-changing economy. In addition, the university recently introduced the Herbet Chitepo Law School thus increasing the number of law schools in the country.