THE 2025 national public examination results are out and the national pass rate year-on-year is improving.
However, there are questions about the integrity or credibility of the examining board, but more worryingly is the structure of Zimbabwe’s public education and the industry’s absorption rate of graduates.
The national average pass rate for Advanced Level was at 96%, while that of Ordinary Level for the first time in decades has breached 35%.
By any measurement, this is impressive and among the best of all-time records.
However, the results do not reflect the reality on the ground.
There are school districts that have pass rates below 10%.
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It is a dawning reality that this newly found education success is not inclusive, some pupils are being left behind.
It remains a sad fact that some secondary schools are still not electrified, do not have laboratories and cannot offer computing studies.
These schools, therefore, offer languages and social sciences — generally referred to as Arts subjects.
To make matters worse, these poor rural schools have the least number of trained teachers as they remain unattractive to young teachers.
The government in the past has tried to give incentives to rural school teachers that include free housing and a hardship allowance.
However, this is not enticing enough as many schools are far from roads and have poor internet connection.
Let us zero in on career guidance and opportunities after writing public examinations.
Zimbabweans over the past decade have started romanticising academic degrees.
It is the fashionable thing to enter into university, don’t mind the type or quality of the degree.
The number of Zimbabwe’s universities have grown phenomenally from two — University of Zimbabwe and National University of Science and Technology — in the 1990s to nearly 20.
Many technical colleges were overnight turned into universities.
Some enterprising individuals and churches also latched on to the new enterprise --- education for profit.
Midlands State University has become the biggest college in Zimbabwe by enrolment numbers.
It has campuses in Gweru, Zvishavane, Kwekwe and Harare.
It also runs block release courses in addition to conventional programmes.
This is the new reality of education in Zimbabwe.
I have deliberately not included thousands who go to Cyprus, India, Malaysia, Zambia and South African universities.
It is now the paper certificate that is more important than the personal competencies.
Many universities have split courses and some new degrees have funny names that you wonder what the graduate will be doing in industry.
Zimbabwe needs look no further than Germany to find suitable and sustainable educational pathways.
Germany is not the biggest industrialised country in Western Europe by chance.
It took a deliberate policy to produce artisans needed by industry and, therefore, built and equipped polytechnics across the country.
It is proud and defends its two-pathway education system — academics for production of knowledge and artisans/apprentices for its industries.
It recognises that not everyone is an academic.
There is pride in manufacturing, doing something with own hands.
It produces thousands of mechanics, auto electricians, upholstery, welders and spray painters for its automobile industry.
Education has to serve a purpose.
It is not for decoration on the walls.
It is a misnormer that Zimbabwe produces many degrees that are irrelevant to its major industries — agriculture and mining.
These two industries need thousands of crop scientists, crop production, irrigation experts, vetinary personnel, post-harvest technicians, blasters, chemists, assayers, boiler makers and electricians, among many other artisans.
These two industries are supported by other industries such as leather industry, textile technicians for protective clothing, machine operators, mechanics, auto-electricians and welders.
We springle in accountants, sales representatives, human resources experts and social scientists.
That is how industries are built.
That is how industry is sustained.
We add in downstream industries such agriculture processing, jewellery manufacturing and rubber manufacturing, thus making sustainable industry eco-systems.
The majority of the jobs in these sectors do not necessarily need degrees, they need competent artisans.
This is what Zimbabwe needs.
This is what our policies should be geared towards, not producing many stupid and irrelevant degrees.
We have new buzzwords like entrepreneurship.
They sound nice, nay good to the ear, but what do they mean in reality?
Throw in another term, small to medium enterprises (SME) and we have a whole new thing, except there is nothing new or novel about it.
Germany, once again, gives us pointers.
It has been there and done that.
In Germany, an SME is measured by the number of its employees or turnover.
These employ between 50 and 100 workers or they have turnover of US$300 000.
Many companies in Zimbabwe, if they were in Germany, would be SMEs.
Zimbabwe has to haul itself back to manufacturing not remain a supermarket economy.
Workers have to get dirty and produce products.
Industries in Graniteside (Harare) or Belmont (Bulawayo) have to be belching smoke into the sky as boilers are heated every day.
This would have to be the new trajectory, not the competition about who wrote and passed the most subjects at Ordinary or Advanced Level.
People should be measured by what they can produce.
Whatever a flowery record one produces but cannot do simple joinery, plumbing, electrician or even reassemble small gadgets is useless.
Our education has to be decolonised.
It has to reflect Zimbabwe’s aspirations as an industrial and manufacturing country.
It should produce more artisans than theoretic degree holders who don’t know which end of the spanner to hold.
I’m out!