By Cde Bekezela Mkonto KaMthwakazi
Last Friday, nearly 7,000 graduates strutted across the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) stage, mortarboards perched proudly and smiles plastered on, while somewhere behind the curtains, lecturers were still striking, demanding fair pay and respect for education.
The irony was thicker than the ceremonial robes.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa capped the 6,918 graduands regardless of the legal challenge filed in the High Court by Dr Phillemon Chamburuka, who begged the judiciary to halt the ceremony until a proper audit of semester results was done.
But why let a little thing like legality or integrity get in the way of pomp?
Among the hooded and robed were political veterans of misadventure—Dexter Nduna, former Chegutu West legislator, finally claiming a Law degree after last year’s faked graduation scandal, and Walter Chikwanha, now a Doctor of Philosophy in Law.
For them, the graduation stage was less about knowledge and more about optics.
However, for the rest of the graduates, reality begins now.
Some will pivot swiftly to cash-in-hand hustles—trading airtime, hawking groceries, or hairdressing—professions that have zero alignment with their degrees but promise a more immediate survival.
The smart will survive!
On the other hand the stranded and unlucky, well they will grab whatever comes, sometimes at the cost of dignity.
True patriots, of course, and the truly foolish, who after months or years of fruitless job hunting may retreat to drug abuse, swapping ambition for chemical reprieve, a tragic footnote in Zimbabwe’s employment saga.
The spectacle of capping students mid-strike reveals the absurd theatre of national priorities: state ceremony over staff welfare, photo ops over pedagogy.
Lecturers strike; graduates celebrate.
Caps are donned; classrooms remain empty.
Degrees are earned; skills are ignored.
In short, life after college in Zimbabwe is a masterclass in irony.
Congratulations are dispensed freely, while the tools to use those degrees meaningfully remain locked behind strikes, unemployment, and a state that prefers optics over substance.
