Every graduation season in Zambia brings the same powerful spectacle. Families gather at universities and colleges to celebrate sons, daughters, brothers and sisters who have successfully completed years of study.
There are photographs, flowers, ululations and proud parents watching their children walk across the stage in academic gowns to receive their certificates.
For many families, graduation day represents years of sacrifice. Parents have paid tuition fees, bought books, provided accommodation and supported their children through difficult periods. The graduation photograph becomes a treasured family memory.
But once the gown is returned and the celebrations are over, a difficult question remains: what will the graduate actually have to show for those years of learning?
This is not a question intended to diminish the value of education. Rather, it should force Zambia to examine the relationship between education and employment, skills and productivity, and qualifications and economic opportunity.
Across the country, there are thousands of graduates holding degrees in fields ranging from accounting and law to engineering, education, agriculture, information technology and social sciences.
Yet many spend months or even years searching for meaningful employment.
Some survive through temporary jobs. Others enter the informal economy, selling goods, operating small businesses, driving taxis or taking whatever work is available.
There are also graduates who accept unpaid internships or jobs that have little connection with the qualifications they worked so hard to obtain.
For some, migration becomes the next option. Zambia continues to lose skilled young people who look beyond the country’s borders for opportunities in countries where their qualifications can provide a clearer path to employment.
The problem therefore goes beyond unemployment. It is also about underemployment and the failure to fully utilise the knowledge and skills produced by our universities and colleges.
There is something deeply frustrating about a young Zambian spending four or five years studying engineering, accounting, law, computer science or another specialised discipline, only to discover that the economy has very few opportunities related to that training.
Yet Zambian families continue to make enormous sacrifices to educate their children. Some sell livestock, borrow money, use savings or make other financial sacrifices because education is still regarded as one of the most reliable routes out of poverty.
And they are right to value education.
A university qualification can provide knowledge, discipline and professional skills. But a degree by itself cannot create jobs. That requires an economy capable of absorbing skilled people and turning their knowledge into productive activity.
This is where Zambia’s development conversation must become more serious.
The country cannot continue to measure educational success simply by the number of graduates produced each year. We should also ask how many graduates find employment, how many establish businesses, how many create jobs and how many are able to apply their training within Zambia.
Universities and colleges must also remain responsive to the changing economy. Zambia needs skills that can support agriculture, manufacturing, mining, energy, technology, construction, tourism and other productive sectors.
There is equally a need to give greater recognition to technical and vocational education. Not every young person needs a university degree to build a successful career.
Skilled technicians, artisans, mechanics, electricians, welders, programmers and other specialists are essential to national development.
The danger is that society can become obsessed with academic titles while neglecting the economic structures needed to transform qualifications into livelihoods.
This can also produce an endless cycle in which graduates pursue Master’s degrees and even doctorates, not necessarily because they want to become researchers or academics, but because they hope another qualification will finally make them employable.
Graduation should therefore not be the end of the conversation about education. It should be the beginning of a discussion about what happens afterwards.
A graduation gown symbolises achievement, but it should not become the most visible evidence of what a young person gained from higher education.
The real measure of success should be whether education gives people the capacity to solve problems, create opportunities, earn dignified livelihoods and contribute meaningfully to the development of their country.
Zambia has invested heavily in expanding access to education. The next challenge is ensuring that the economy expands alongside that investment.
Otherwise, every graduation season will produce another generation proudly posing for photographs in academic gowns, while the certificates that follow struggle to open the doors they were expected to unlock.
The gown should celebrate the beginning of a productive journey, not become the only tangible reminder that the journey ever happened.