Online Reporter
Miriam Tose Majome
Correspondent
There is a fierce determination among many Zimbabwean families: raise a child, then prepare them to leave.
Success is measured by how quickly one’s children escape, whether through scholarships, student visas, or to relatives abroad to see what they can do. From the early years of school, parents work towards this goal.
They avoid Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) examinations in favour of University of Cambridge or other foreign systems, and by the time the child finishes high school, they are already strangers to the country’s institutions and ways of life.
This is not because Zimbabwe has no opportunities. It is because the support structures that should nurture talent and provide direction are missing. Parents, seeing this vacuum, do what they can.
They push their children into foreign systems, hoping distance will guarantee security. Yet in doing so, we produce generations whose ties to Zimbabwe grow thinner, and whose understanding of our own systems is weak.
Zimbabwe now has at least 20 universities offering courses across science, engineering, agriculture, technology and the humanities.
From a single university at independence, the expansion speaks volumes about the hunger for higher education. Yet despite this growth, the overwhelming demand is for foreign universities. Every August and September, the airport teems with families sending off their children to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, or the United States.
For those who can afford it, local universities are only considered when the foreign plan collapses.
The preference for foreign education is understandable in some respects. International exposure opens doors, and global opportunities are real. But the rush abroad has become less about opportunities than about avoidance.
Even Government officials, who should have confidence in national institutions, quietly send their children elsewhere. The message is unmistakable: local systems are for the poor who have no other choice.
The cost is immense.
Millions of dollars are repatriated each year to pay for foreign tuition and upkeep. Much of it goes not to world-class institutions, but to third-rate colleges that offer little value at home. Many graduates return frustrated, unemployed, and unable to apply their qualifications.
The investment is rarely recouped. Worse still, a fair number never finish their studies, worn down by isolation, depression, and cultural shock. Many families spend fortunes only for their children to struggle and fail far from home.
Meanwhile, local universities limp on with limited resources and declining prestige. If even a fraction of the money flowing out of the country was invested in upgrading one or two institutions to world-class standards, the pressure to send children abroad would ease.
National pride is the missing ingredient. Parents and students should feel that studying at the University of Zimbabwe, National University of Science and Technology, or Chinhoyi University of Technology is not a mark of failure, but a competitive choice.
The migration of youth carries social costs beyond economics. In Bulawayo, studies have shown that children left behind when parents migrate suffer feelings of abandonment and lack of supervision.
The wellbeing of such children is sacrificed for parental ambition. Those who leave for foreign universities also pay an emotional price. Many are still too young to manage independence so far from home, and they stumble through long, painful years that should have been the brightest of their lives.
Yet Zimbabwe is not without promise. The private sector is growing, agriculture has room for innovation, and technology is slowly expanding. Opportunities exist, but young people rarely see them because there are too few support structures.
The absence of affordable start-up funding, mentorship programmes, proper career counselling, and effective youth policies makes staying unattractive.
If the best youthful brains are to be kept here, education must be the starting point.
ZIMSEC should not be treated as a stigma, but as a respected benchmark.
Local universities should be upgraded, so that they are chosen not out of desperation, but out of genuine trust in their quality. Beyond education, the country needs deliberate youth retention policies: apprenticeships and scholarships tied to local service, community-based civic programmes, start-up incentives, and reinvigorated but depoliticised youth service initiatives that build skills and identity rather than alienate.
Zimbabwe does not lack opportunities. It lacks the structures that allow its youths to imagine their lives here. Unless those structures are rebuilt, every August and September will be marked not by excitement for new university terms, but by airports crowded with departing youths and a nation quietly exporting its own future.
Miriam Tose Majome is a lawyer and a Commissioner with the Zimbabwe Media Commission. She writes in her personal capacity and can be contacted on [email protected]
