Nearly 2,000 qualifications fail ZAQA’s exam, but their owners already have jobs
Thousands of qualifications may have opened doors for their holders, but nearly 2,000 of them apparently forgot to bring the paperwork to prove they deserved to walk through those doors in the first place.
Lusaka, 22 September – The Zambia Qualifications Authority (ZAQA) says it verified more than 59,000 qualifications last year and found that almost 2,000 did not meet the required standards.
And in what may be the most awkward part of the story, some of the people holding those questionable qualifications are not sitting at home waiting for a job. They are already employed.
ZAQA Director General Mercy Ngoma said most of the people whose qualifications were found to be unqualified are already working in various industries.
“ZAQA detected almost 2,000 unqualified results last year,” Ngoma said.
According to Ngoma, a significant number of the problematic qualifications came from institutions in the United Kingdom that are not accredited or recognised in Zambia.
In other words, while a qualification may have looked perfectly respectable on paper, ZAQA’s verification process appears to have asked the uncomfortable question: “Recognised by whom?”
Ngoma said about 70 percent of the unqualified results detected involved Zambians.
She also said some people had taken matters into their own hands after failing examinations, allegedly altering their grades in order to improve their chances of getting jobs.
“Others wrote their exams, failed and changed their grades just to get a job,” she said.
That particular strategy may have worked long enough to get some people through the recruitment door, but it appears to have met its match at ZAQA.
The revelations raise an uncomfortable question for employers: how many certificates are being accepted at face value without anyone checking whether the institution that issued them is actually recognised?
A certificate can have impressive fonts, a serious-looking stamp and enough signatures to make it appear more official than a presidential speech. But according to ZAQA, none of that necessarily makes the qualification legitimate.
The authority says it will continue tightening verification and monitoring qualifications to ensure that people undergo proper training and obtain genuine, recognised qualifications.
For job seekers, the message is fairly simple: failing an exam is not the end of the world. Changing the grade, however, could turn a job application into a much longer conversation.
And for employers, perhaps the old saying needs a small upgrade: don’t just check the CV. Check the certificate, too.
-Nkanionline 2026 #NewsOnDemand