Online Reporter
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has today set the record straight, saying approximately one in two children in Zimbabwe successfully completes primary school having passed the public examinations, not the alarming one-in-six claimed by a recent misleading external report.
The education ministry presented robust national data that categorically debunks a recent international report claiming only one in six Zimbabwean children completes primary school with basic reading and mathematics skills, asserting instead a narrative of measurable progress and resilience built under the Second Republic.
Citing nine years of empirical data from the Zimbabwe Early Learning Assessment (ZELA), the Government clarified that the reality is significantly more positive, with foundational skills firmly in place for the majority of children by Grade 2 and a steadily improving pass rate at the Grade 7 level.
The controversial claim was made in the Spotlight Report on Foundational Learning in Africa, published in October 2025.
However, tracked ZELA data from 2015 to 2024 reveals consistent and substantial improvements in literacy and numeracy.
In an exclusive interview, the ministry spokesperson, Mr Taungana Ndoro, said: “The claim that only 16.7 percent of our children are proficient is statistically indefensible and paints a grossly misleading picture of the Zimbabwean education landscape.
“Our own data, collected annually through a rigorous national assessment, tells a very different and encouraging story of resilience, recovery, and tangible growth.”
The ZELA 2024 report shows that 72.45 percent of Grade 2 learners were proficient in mathematics, while 74.94 percent achieved grade-level proficiency in English.
This trend of strong foundational skills has been consistent since 2015, demonstrating that by the second grade, approximately three out of every four children are on track.
“These early gains are critical. They form the bedrock upon which all future learning is built. To suggest that this foundation evaporates by Grade 7 is to ignore the systemic efforts and investments made under the guidance of His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa to strengthen our entire educational architecture,” he said.
