Zimbabwe ranks high in speaking English, but what’s the use?

Zimbabwe has secured the second highest English proficiency ranking in Africa and placed 13th globally in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index. It shares this global position with South Africa, the continent’s top performer.

In the process, Zimbabwe outperformed several European and Asian countries often assumed to have stronger institutional and economic foundations, including Poland and Greece.

In a global survey measuring adult English competence across more than 100 countries, this is not a trivial statistic. It is not a vanity metric. It is a signal.

At a time when Zimbabwe is more often associated with currency instability, migration, political uncertainty and economic fragility, the ranking tells a different story about the country’s people. It suggests a society that remains linguistically equipped for global participation even as its material conditions lag behind.

The EF English Proficiency Index measures functional English use in reading, listening and comprehension.

Zimbabwe’s placement reflects decades of emphasis on literacy, teacher training and English medium education inherited from the colonial system and sustained, unevenly but persistently, after independence. It also reflects the adaptive intelligence of a population that has had to engage with the world beyond its borders for work, study and survival.

But what does this ranking really mean for Zimbabwe? Does national English proficiency translate into tangible benefits? Or is it simply another reminder of unrealised potential?

The first and most immediate significance lies in economic competitiveness. English remains the primary language of global trade, finance, aviation, technology, diplomacy and development work.

For a country seeking investment, export markets and employment pathways for its citizens, widespread English proficiency reduces friction. It lowers the cost of doing business. Contracts are easier to negotiate. Training materials do not need translation. Communication errors are fewer.

Zimbabwe’s labour force is already among the most mobile in Africa. From South Africa to Botswana, the United Kingdom to Australia, Zimbabweans are visible in healthcare, education, engineering, hospitality and civil society. Language has played a decisive role in this mobility.

English proficiency enhances employability in multinational firms, international NGOs, regional institutions and increasingly in remote digital work. In a global labour market where skills are filtered through language, Zimbabweans clear the first gate with ease.

There is also an entrepreneurial dimension. The digital economy runs largely in English. Online learning platforms, coding resources, funding ecosystems, market research tools and global supply chains are mediated through the language.

A population fluent in English can access knowledge directly rather than secondhand. It can sell services across borders, build audiences online and compete in global idea markets. This gives Zimbabwe a latent advantage that many countries of similar income levels do not possess.

Education is another area where the benefits compound. High English proficiency expands access to global knowledge production. Most academic journals, scientific research, technical manuals and policy literature are published in English.

Zimbabwean students and professionals are able to engage this material without delay or distortion. This supports stronger human capital formation even under constrained conditions.

It also facilitates academic mobility. Zimbabwe has long punched above its weight in producing scholars, doctors, engineers and teachers who succeed in international training environments. Scholarships, fellowships and postgraduate opportunities are more accessible when language is not a barrier. Diaspora professionals, in turn, are better positioned to transfer skills and knowledge back home, formally or informally.

There is a diplomatic and strategic dimension as well. Language is power in international relations. States that can articulate their interests fluently in global forums shape narratives rather than merely respond to them.

English proficiency strengthens Zimbabwe’s capacity to participate meaningfully in multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the African Union and SADC. It enhances the quality of its diplomats, negotiators and technocrats. Soft power is not only cultural or military. It is also linguistic.

Within Zimbabwe itself, English continues to play a bridging role across linguistic and ethnic communities. While indigenous languages remain central to identity and cultural life, English functions as a neutral administrative and educational medium.

It enables national communication, professional mobility and a shared civic language in a diverse society. In a country where language politics could easily become divisive, functional bilingualism and multilingualism anchored by English has helped maintain cohesion.

Yet this ranking also carries warnings. Language proficiency is an enabling condition, not a development strategy.

Countries can speak excellent English and still fail to generate jobs, innovation and shared prosperity. Zimbabwe’s core problem is not human capacity. It is economic absorption.

When a highly skilled and linguistically capable population faces limited domestic opportunity, the result is not growth but exit. English proficiency becomes an export commodity.

Teachers, nurses, engineers and graduates leave, not because they lack patriotism but because the economy cannot use them. In this sense, high English proficiency can accelerate brain drain if not matched by industrial policy, investment and institutional reform.

There is also a cultural risk. Over-privileging English can marginalise indigenous languages and knowledge systems if not handled deliberately.

Language policy must avoid reproducing colonial hierarchies of value where intelligence and professionalism are measured solely through English fluency. A confident nation uses English instrumentally, without allowing it to hollow out its own linguistic heritage.

Most importantly, the ranking exposes a familiar Zimbabwean paradox. The country’s people often outrun its systems. Human potential exceeds political imagination and economic structure. Zimbabwe speaks the language of the world fluently, but struggles to translate that fluency into domestic transformation.

The EF ranking should therefore be read neither as self-congratulation nor as irony. It is evidence. Evidence that Zimbabwe possesses a globally competitive human resource base. Evidence that constraints are structural rather than intellectual. Evidence that the distance between what Zimbabwe is and what it could be is not measured in talent, but in governance, policy coherence and opportunity creation.

In that sense, the ranking is both a compliment and an indictment.

It affirms what Zimbabweans have always known about themselves. And it sharpens the question that continues to haunt the country. What happens when a nation has the language of the future, but remains trapped in the politics of the past?

Gabriel Manyati is a Zimbabwean journalist and analyst delivering incisive commentary on politics, human interest stories, and current affairs.