Story by Farai Gwaze
THE release of the 2025 Ordinary and Advanced Level examination results has reignited a national conversation on the relevance and direction of career guidance within Zimbabwe’s education system.
As candidates, parents and educators reflect on the outcomes, attention has shifted beyond pass rates to broader questions around subject selection, career planning and whether academic achievement alone adequately prepares learners for life beyond school.
While some candidates emerged with multiple distinctions, including straight “A” grades across more than ten Advanced Level subjects, education specialists argue that such academic feats raise important questions about purpose and direction. They note that, in most cases, five Ordinary Level passes and three Advanced Level subjects aligned to a chosen field are sufficient to support progression into higher education or vocational pathways.
“We are living in an age where intelligence is no longer enough, but we need direction, and I think one of the things, as somebody who is in the career guidance space, is the heritage-based system. This is a time to awaken to who we are as Africans and Zimbabweans. The opportunities that are here are different from Europe and everywhere else, and I think a time needs to come when such intelligence can be harnessed into our own local African solutions,” Career Guidance Specialist Ignatius Munengwa said.
Educational institutions play a pivotal role in ensuring students get the right kind of guidance when it comes to the selection of subjects.
“When students are doing their A levels, this is the point where they know exactly what they want to do in life. So it is important that someone knows exactly what they want to do in life. For example, if someone wants to be an engineer, there would not be a reason why they would need to do 20 subjects, or maybe they would want to do six subjects; they just need to focus on the three subjects and specialise,” Education Consultant Sydney Gorejena said.
“One aspect that I would like to make clear to parents is that getting grades is not winning the game of life. Getting grades is only a part of winning the game of life; there are some other aspects that children need to understand, like a lot of soft skills that are needed in this generation. You look at the number of children who have degrees worldwide, which has gone up compared to earlier years, and those children who sometimes do well after school understand how to win the game of life, soft skills,” Head Heritage School Crispen Mhike said.
As students enter the new academic year, it is important that they get the necessary support to pick the right subjects to ensure clear guidance in their further education.
