Education is Still Key for All Young Zimbabweans

By Takura Zhangazha*

 This week a young Zimbabwean comrade asked for some advice.  He had just collected his very decent Advanced Level (A Level) results but appeared disappointed.  I asked him why he was not happy. He explained that he expected to do better.  I smiled and replied to do better for who?  As expected his answer was that he had wanted to do better for his parents who had struggled to pay his school fees.  And also for his teachers but also significantly for his pride with his peers.

The real advice he wanted to ask for was not so routine however.  I had checked all the local university and college websites trying to ensure I could give him as many options as possible about not just a career but a new knowledge acquisition path.  He didn’t want that.  He was straight to the point in indicating his primary curiosity about his future.  Key questions were around what sort of job he would get if he did that degree or that diploma.  Questions that were directly utilitarian. 

And I understood where he was coming from.  With a bit of personal reminiscence about the time I also got my A Level results and the immediate career option pressures that came with them. 

And it is for this reason that I slowed him down a little bit.  I explained that the purpose of tertiary education is as complex as it is important for his personal career development.  And I separated these elements in two respects.  The first being that the complexity of it arises from the given importance of trying to acquire further knowledge through tertiary education.  That no matter the A level results and attenuated degree or diploma challenges, further education is always an important stepping stone to better things. I will come back to this point later.

The second with regards to the technical career importance of tertiary education focused on explaining how for example, tertiary qualifications in contemporary times do not guarantee a set career path.  Let alone individual success in the chosen career.  But that they certainly help. 

After this conversation with the anxious young cde, I also took a bit of time to reflect further on our tertiary education system and how it has evolved over the last two decades.  And also whether what it meant then should be the same as what it means now. 

The first most obvious change between then and now is that where it comes to tertiary education there is no longer an evident a bottle-neck system as was in the past.  We have more universities (though I am not so sure about any expansion in polytechnic colleges). Therefore tertiary education eligibility for many students has become more apparent. Though at cost since the government no longer directly helps students with tuition fees via grants or loans. That means the decision of a student to go for further education is largely based on their ability to pay for it either via their parents/guardians or almost impossibly by themselves.  In this case we need to seriously consider the fact that a majority of our students come from poor households that can barely afford high school education let alone its tertiary dimension.  And therefore we need to urge government to re-introduce a student loan and grant scheme for all potential students.  Even if the numbers are much higher than in the 1990s.  I always joke with my peers about how those that are at the helm of privatizing higher education are beneficiaries of its previous publicly funded predecessor.  

In the second instance, I looked at how we perceived of our own personal aspirations via education. And of course how we have generally turned out.  And I will give an anecdotal example.  At the height of the tragic diamond rush on Chiadzwa, a joke emerged about how those that did not do well in school (even Grade 7) were now drinking beer while their former teachers were looking on in awe and envy.  Largely due to the emerging disparities but now very real in the contemporary between individual economic success and educational status. Whereas in the past it was the type of qualification post high school that you attained that would give you some sort of chance at material success, in the contemporary it is your type of ‘hustle’ that justifies your competitive material wellbeing.    

In either example however the importance of tertiary education does not go away for young Zimbabweans. Especially in them learning not only newer knowledge but also as a stepping stone to that assumed next hustle.  And this is perhaps where we need to re-think how we value our children’s futures beyond platitudes.

The meaning of tertiary education is not just about that potential next well-paying job they can get and make their parents proud.  And this is where I return to the initial complexity of it all that I mentioned earlier.  We need to change our tertiary education system to value more the knowledge acquisition than just its individual materialism and assumptions of joining the rich and the elite. Where even some of the latter arrived there by way of inheritance and not necessarily knowledge acquisition. 

While the global trend remains one that elevates what is referred to as ‘disruption’, ditto tech industry executives (seriously cdes we can’t all be Bill Gates).  Our Zimbabwean reality still requires young people that still go to colleges and universities.  Formally and for a multiplicity of qualifications.  Be they in the natural, social, cultural and teaching sciences.  Together with a state that actively subsidises this at all levels and more significantly where it concerns tertiary education.  Mainly because this is where a new progressive national consciousness is always born.  Warts and all. 

In conclusion, we all have different life experiences to tell about how we got to be where we are.  Especially some of us who are part of what I call the ESAP generation.  And our narratives are those of the pain of having to get that particular degree or diploma to lift families out of poverty.  It worked for a while, then because we didn’t anticipate the future holistically, it has not been roses as we expected.  But we cannot pass on the same burden to young Zimbabweans. We need to emphasize again and again that tertiary education is a stepping stone to the future.  Not an end in itself.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)