Have Zimbabwe’s youth lost confidence in higher education?

When Zvikomborero Mawodza finished her O-levels in Zimbabwe, there was no money for her to go to advanced secondary school, let alone university. But, instead of seeing this as a lost opportunity to attain higher education, Mawodza calls it “a blessing in disguise”.

“Financially, I am doing way better than many of my friends who proceeded with school and got degrees and diplomas,” Mawodza told University World News. “Except for their diploma and degree certificates, many of my friends who pursued higher education have nothing to show for their efforts.”

Mawodza is among a growing number of young people in Zimbabwe who do not believe that higher education is valuable. She runs multiple informal business ventures, including selling second-hand clothes. She recently imported a new car, a valuable commodity in Zimbabwe where public transportation is dysfunctional and private cars are viewed as symbols of success.

“Most of my friends with degrees and diplomas come to me for advice on how to make it in life,” Mawodza said and laughed. “I went straight into hustling. We meet those who went to college on the streets every day where they sell [mobile phone] airtime ... some of them envy the life we live.”

Growing disenchantment with higher education

In 2016, pictures of vendors who wore their graduation regalia to work in Zimbabwe went viral, This Is Africa reported on 26 July that year. This was a silent protest to decry their failure to find formal employment, despite their education.

Kristina Pikovskaia from the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, investigated the social environment young Zimbabweans find themselves in.

In an article published in the International Development Planning Review in August 2024, she notes that “in the aftermath of the economic crisis and informalisation in Zimbabwe, education has partly lost its social mobility function for young people who feel that their education and skills are not applicable in the context of informalisation, leading them to reconsider the value of education.”

Mawodza told University World News: “Higher education in Zimbabwe is worthless. Here, in Zimbabwe, you collect your degree or diploma certificate and go straight into the informal sector.” She conceded, however, that if you have a higher education qualification and you leave Zimbabwe, the situation will be different, depending on where you go.

Shrinking formal sector

When Melline Genti finished high school a few years ago, she was excited about going to university and applied for her preferred degree. The university she applied to, however, could only accommodate her in a different academic programme. The option was something of which she had never heard. “So, I opted for a different route and got straight into the informal sector.”

Genti sells women’s blazers. She said she felt like getting a degree she knew nothing about was not proper use of her time because “not all higher education is useful”. She added that, “It’s better to do a degree or diploma in mechanics or something that is functional in Zimbabwe. Before you do a degree, just make sure the industry you want to get into using that degree still exists.”

Fully functioning industries in Zimbabwe are dwindling, and research has shown that the country is de-industrialising. Recent news reports in the Zimbabwean media indicate that many companies that offer formal jobs in Zimbabwe, including big companies that have been in Zimbabwe for decades, are exiting or planning to leave the country soon, triggering more job losses in the formal sector.

Education-employment nexus

In Zimbabwe, many young people no longer value higher education because, for some of them, it does not translate to formal employment, Pikovskaia notes. She traces the breakdown of what she terms the education-employment nexus to Zimbabwe’s informalisation and economic crisis which started in the 1990s.

She notes that the crisis has manifested in many ways, “including the unattainability of the early postcolonial modernist lifestyle and a collapse of the robust education-employment nexus and steady transition pathway from school to work for graduates in urban areas”.

Samukhelo Zimuto, a recent graduate from the Catholic University in Zimbabwe, agrees with this point of view. She has a degree in development studies but is also working in the informal sector. Zimuto thinks higher education is important and useful, “but, with the current Zimbabwean economy, most jobs are not related to the degrees that we went to school for”.

Despite the growing disenchantment with higher education, most high school graduates still want to pursue higher education, according to the The ALU 2025 Africa Workforce Readiness Survey report. The study surveyed school leavers’ plans in nine countries in Africa, including Zimbabwe.

According to the findings of the survey, 72% of high-school leavers in Zimbabwe said they had plans to pursue higher education. However, it is important to note that, of the nine countries in which school leavers were surveyed, Zimbabwe had the lowest number of respondents interested in pursuing higher education.

Communicating through music

In her research, Pikovskaia notes how Zimdancehall, a favoured genre of music among youths in Zimbabwe, captures the feelings of some young people towards higher education in the country. She writes: “The mantra of education as the key to success and its loss of relevance due to economic informalisation finds expression in Zimdancehall as this music genre speaks directly to the youth.”

She notes that in a song called Kurarama (Living), Zimdancehall artist Seh Calaz “explains that young people thought that their efforts and their families’ investments in their education would result in their gaining better job prospects but, in the end, they have precarious informal livelihoods, and there is no difference between educated and uneducated youths”.

Pikovskaia also refers to a song by Zimbabwe’s most prominent Zimdancehall artist, Winky D. The song, which is titled 25 and has had close to two million views on YouTube, talks about the unfulfilled dreams of a Zimbabwean youth. One of the biggest disappointments expressed in the song is having a higher education qualification but being unable to use it to transform one’s life.

Emphasise self-employment

The solution to the struggles faced by educated youths in Zimbabwe, stakeholders have said, is to decolonise higher education and promote tertiary learning that will lead to self-employment, stakeholders say. “We are still under the colonial education system,” said Lifeline Gutu, the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) spokesperson. “There is a need to decolonise the curriculum so it is tailor-made to fit the needs of an African youth. The current system that we have doesn’t emancipate youths to sustain themselves after graduation.”

Gutu also said that there is a need to tackle economic challenges in the country that are resulting in de-industrialisation and unemployment. He said focus should be placed on youths getting vocational training so that they can employ themselves after acquiring practical skills.

Kunashe Machowa, a student at the Bulawayo Vocational Training Centre, echoed Gutu’s sentiments. She urged unemployed graduates to acquire vocational training. “After you get your degree, make sure you find yourself something practical to do, a hands-on programme like agricultural programmes, baking programmes. You can do this while waiting for your desired job. Create your own job; jobs are not scarce if you create them yourselves.”