Fix Zimsec before forcing it down our children’s throats

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

The government’s recent directive, as articulated by Education Minister Torerai Moyo, to compel every school in Zimbabwe to sit for Zimsec examinations by 2027 is a move that demands rigorous scrutiny rather than blind applause.

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While the rhetoric of “educational sovereignty” and the pursuit of a “Heritage-Based Curriculum” sounds noble on the surface, the underlying mechanics of this mandate suggest a heavy-handed approach to national identity that risks sacrificing quality for the sake of uniformity.

The policy dictates that while schools may still offer University of Cambridge exams, they must provide a “compelling reason” to do so and, even then, Zimsec remains mandatory.

This is not merely an administrative adjustment; it is an ideological siege on educational choice and a defensive reaction to the uncomfortable reality that our national examination board continues to suffer from a profound crisis of confidence.

To understand why the state feels the need to force this marriage between private schools and Zimsec, one must look at the government’s desire for a singular national narrative.

From the corridors of power, the existence of an elite tier of students bypasses the national syllabus is seen as a threat to social cohesion.

The fear is that a generation of leaders is being groomed in a vacuum, disconnected from Zimbabwean history, indigenous languages, and the socio-economic realities defined by the state.

By making Zimsec the mandatory gateway, the government seeks to “re-nationalize” the education of the wealthy.

However, this logic ignores the fundamental reason why parents—many of whom are the very officials crafting these laws—opt for international boards in the first place.

They are seeking a refuge from a system they know to be compromised.

The reluctance of private institutions to embrace Zimsec is not a snub born of colonial nostalgia; it is a rational response to decades of systemic failure.

The “elephant in the room” remains the catastrophic erosion of examination integrity.

For years, Zimsec has been synonymous with rampant paper leaks that have moved from the briefcase to the WhatsApp group with alarming ease.

When the security of an assessment is consistently breached, the value of the certificate it produces is fundamentally debased.

A grade is only as good as the trust people place in the process that produced it.

When international universities and employers look at a Zimsec result, they see a qualification shadowed by the specter of compromised security.

This is a far cry from the University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), which maintains a global reputation for impenetrable logistics and rigorous standard-setting.

Furthermore, there is a deep-seated pedagogical divide that the government refuses to acknowledge.

Those of us who sat for Cambridge exams in the 1980s and early 1990s remember a system that demanded more than just the “regurgitation of facts.”

Cambridge remains the “gold standard” because it prioritizes critical thinking, the application of knowledge to unfamiliar contexts, and high-level analytical skills.

It provides a portable, globally recognized currency for a student’s future.

In contrast, Zimsec is frequently criticized for favoring rote memorization and a curriculum that feels increasingly localized and insulated from global academic trends.

This obsession with “chewing and spitting” facts creates inert knowledge—information that students can recall for an exam but cannot apply to real-world problems—leaving them dangerously ill-equipped to compete or innovate in a rapidly evolving global economy.

Then there is the absurdity of grade inflation.

We have entered an era where students sit for an insane number of subjects—sometimes fifteen or twenty at A-Level—emerging with a string of “A” grades that would have been intellectually impossible in the 1980s.

This isn’t a surge in national brilliance; it is the manufacturing of success.

When “straight As” become a commodity, the grade itself becomes worthless.

This “points race” signals to the world that Zimsec has traded deep, specialized mastery for superficial breadth.

By prioritizing optics over academic rigor, the board has effectively signaled its own decline, proving that standards haven’t just slipped—they’ve been sacrificed.

For a parent paying premium fees, the choice is clear: why invest in a localized qualification that requires additional hurdles for international recognition when you can access a board that opens doors worldwide?

The most logical path forward—and the one the government seems most determined to avoid—is to address the rot within Zimsec itself.

If the objective is truly to make Zimsec the board of choice, the solution is not legislation, but transformation.

In a functional environment, a national board that offers high security, modern syllabi, and international benchmarking would naturally attract schools.

People do not need to be forced to buy a superior product.

By resorting to compulsion, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is essentially admitting that Zimsec cannot compete on its own merits.

Instead of fixing the leaks, professionalizing the administration, and inviting international auditors to restore the board’s “gold standard” status, the state has chosen to simply outlaw the competition.

This is a move that mirrors the broader economic strategy of the country: when a system fails to inspire confidence, use the law to prevent people from seeking alternatives.

The argument that we must break away from the colonial system to be truly independent is a powerful emotional hook, but it is often used to mask mediocrity.

We do not have to look far to see countries that have successfully localized their examinations without destroying academic freedom or standards.

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) are examples of regional bodies that have built significant prestige.

These nations did not succeed merely by banning foreign boards; they succeeded by investing heavily in technical capacity, ensuring rigorous moderation, and maintaining a level of transparency that earned the trust of the global community.

They proved that “indigenous” does not have to mean “inferior.”

Ultimately, education is a public good, but it is also an investment in a child’s future.

By forcing schools into a mandatory Zimsec framework, the government is gambling with that investment.

Until Zimsec can guarantee that its papers will not be sold on street corners and that its curriculum prepares students for the complexities of the 21st-century global economy, it will remain a board of last resort for those who have a choice.

True educational sovereignty is not achieved by forcing everyone to sit for a compromised exam; it is achieved by building a national institution so excellent that even the elite wouldn’t dream of looking elsewhere.

Until that day comes, the government is not championing heritage—it is merely mandating mediocrity.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08