In Zimbabwe, it is so easy to lose one’s direction in life.
The recent headlines celebrating a young man from Pamushana High School who scored a staggering 56 points across twelve subjects in the 2025 Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) Advanced Level examinations have, predictably, sparked a wave of national awe.
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He is being hailed as a “whizkid,” a “genius,” and a “prodigy” for his academic marathon.
While his work ethic and raw intellectual stamina are undoubtedly impressive, we need to stop and ask ourselves a very uncomfortable question: Why are we celebrating this?
For those of us who understand the architecture of education and the reality of career development, this is not a moment for celebration, but a moment for deep concern.
It is time to speak the truth that our education system and our parenting culture are too afraid to voice: scoring 56 points across a dozen subjects is not a sign of genius; it is a glaring symptom of a systemic lack of career guidance and a fundamental misunderstanding of what Advanced Level education is designed to achieve.
We have allowed a toxic culture of “subject-hoarding” to grip our nation.
Students are now competing not to master a field, but to see who can sit for the most exams.
This academic arms race is being cheered on by parents, teachers, and even the examination board itself, which recently went to the length of securing “timetable deviations” to accommodate a single student’s clashing papers.
By facilitating this, we are failing our children.
We are leading them astray by making their confusion and lack of direction appear like brilliance.
At eighteen years old, a student should be narrowing their focus, not broadening it to the point of absurdity.
We all know the foundational logic of our system: at Ordinary Level, a student takes a wide menu of subjects—ten, twelve, or more—to be exposed to the many facets of human knowledge.
This is the stage of discovery, where a child figures out their strengths and passions.
However, by the time they reach A-Level, they are expected to have moved from the “menu” to the “meal.”
The A-Level stage is, by design, a period of specialization.
It is the bridge between general knowledge and professional expertise.
This is why the standard requirement is three subjects.
Not twelve.
Not six.
But three.
The reason is simple: if a student wants to be a medical doctor, they need to dive deep into Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics or Physics.
If they wish to be a journalist, they hone their craft in English Literature, History, and perhaps Sociology or a third language.
This specialization allows them to develop the analytical depth required for university-level thought.
When a student chooses twelve subjects, they are essentially admitting that they have no idea what they want to do with their lives, or they are being guided by adults who value the “spectacle” of high points over the “substance” of a career path.
Consider the case of young man from Pamushana, who aspires to study Aerospace Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
To be an elite Aerospace Engineer, one needs a rock-solid foundation in Pure Mathematics, Physics, and perhaps Chemistry or Further Mathematics.
Looking at his list of twelve subjects, one finds Crop Science and Accounting.
It begs the question: What business does a future rocket scientist have spending sleepless nights on the nuances of agricultural production or the principles of double-entry bookkeeping?
These are valuable subjects in their own right, but for an engineering aspirant, they are a distraction.
They represent hours of lost sleep and cognitive energy that could have been spent mastering the complexities of fluid dynamics or advanced calculus—areas that would actually serve him at MIT.
The tragedy here is not just the student’s wasted time, but the opportunity cost.
We are told his family sold three cows and used his father’s salary to pay for these twelve examination fees.
In a country where resources are scarce, this is a heartbreaking waste of capital for a result that adds zero additional value to a university application.
No university in the world, including MIT, views twelve A-Level subjects as “better” than four A* grades in relevant subjects.
In fact, admissions officers at top-tier institutions often look at “subject-padding” with skepticism, as it can suggest a lack of focus or a student who prioritizes rote memorization over deep, specialized intellectual inquiry.
We are encouraging our children to become “jacks of all trades and masters of none,” and then we have the audacity to label it “whizkid” behavior.
Furthermore, we must address the role of the adults in this scenario.
When the young man expressed a desire to take twelve subjects, his mother was initially skeptical but eventually gave in.
The school’s deputy headmaster admitted he tried to “reason” with the boy but then proceeded to help him navigate the clashing timetable.
This is where we are failing as mentors.
An eighteen-year-old is still a child in the eyes of professional planning; they are driven by the desire to prove themselves and often by a misunderstanding of how the world works.
Our job as parents, teachers, and career counselors is to provide the guardrails.
We should be the ones saying, “You are brilliant, and because you are brilliant, you should focus that energy on becoming the best mathematician or physicist in the country, rather than spreading yourself thin across subjects that have nothing to do with your future.”
Instead, we stand back and applaud as they run themselves ragged, writing exams with only fifteen-minute breaks in between, as if academic endurance is a substitute for academic direction.
This culture of “point-chasing” also does a massive disservice to the students who are actually following the correct path.
There are thousands of brilliant Zimbabwean students who took three subjects, scored fifteen points, and are now focused, specialized, and ready for their specific degree programs.
These students aren’t “lesser” than the one who scored 56 points; they are simply better guided.
They understood that A-Level is not a marathon of quantity, but a test of quality.
By glorifying the 56-point score, we send a message to the rest of the country that three subjects are “easy” and that true genius requires a ridiculous number of certificates.
This is a lie.
Many of us who are professionals today did only three subjects, not because we weren’t “bright enough” to do more, but because we knew exactly where we were going.
We didn’t need to prove our intelligence by collecting unnecessary acronyms on an A-Level certificate.
We need to return to the basics of career guidance.
We need counselors who can sit a student down and explain that a career in Aerospace Engineering is built on the quality of your Physics and Mathematics, not on your ability to pass Accounting and Crop Science simultaneously.
We need to stop the “timetable deviations” and the glorification of sleepless nights spent on irrelevant content.
We are nurturing a generation that equates “busy-ness” with “achievement.”
If we continue to celebrate this, we will end up with a workforce of high-achievers who are perpetually exhausted and fundamentally lost, having spent their formative years chasing points instead of purpose.
Let us help our children to be “whizkids” in their chosen fields.
Let us encourage them to be the best at what matters.
When we see an eighteen-year-old wanting to take twelve subjects, we shouldn’t be selling cows to fund the madness; we should be sitting them down and helping them find their true north.
Anything less is not just a lack of guidance—it is a betrayal of our responsibility to lead the next generation toward a meaningful and focused future.
TENDAI RUBEN MBOFANA - THE UN-OPPRESSED MIND! 