Zambia has announced that some of scientists and researchers would join the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) mega project in South Africa.

The SKA is the world's most powerful radio telescope project shared between Australia and South Africa.

And in South Africa the SKA will be hosted in the remote town of Carnavon, Northern Cape and will be implemented in partnership with eight other African countries.

The Zambian government said Zambia, like other participating countries in Africa, will send young scientists to the southern African nation for training so that they are equipped with the requisite skills to effectively participate in the project.

The minister of education, science, vocational training and early education Michael Kaingu said he will galvanise universities in Zambia and other stakeholders including the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) and Zambia Telecommunication Company (Zamtel) so that they can participate in sending scientists to South Africa.

Kaingu who attended the second ministerial meeting of the SKA Africa Partner Countries in South Africa this week said the project provides an opportunity for Zambian scientists and researchers to acquire the latest expertise from the SKA.

He said the SKA project will contribute to human capital development through training in cutting-edge technology that will be required during the construction process and manning what will be world’s largest radio telescope.

In line with the programme being executed under the SKA project, each partner will develop individual satellite dishes which will be brought onto one network connecting to a central satellite dish.

“This project is important to Africa as it will help our researchers with data especially for those countries with shortages of academic staff,” Kaingu said.

He added that work to convert the Mwembeshi satellite dish into a radio astronomy facility was also progressing well.

Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mozambique and Ghana are some the African countries participating in the SKA project.