Examining the Policy Implications of Massification of Higher Education in Zimbabwe, how Quality was Inevitably Compromised

The United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposal to achieve universal access to Primary and higher education in Zimbabwe from the attainment of independence in 1980 till the beginning of the new millennium has faced unprecedented massification of higher education. Any attempt to open up the system and introducing polices of deepening and widening access to higher education seems have inevitably led to the belief that mass education will be achieved at the price of lower quality education. Notwithstanding the wide array of challenges associated with the massification of higher education, the expansion of higher education in Zimbabwe has seen a major challenge of the decline in the quality of teaching and learning. This article examines the policy implication of mass education in Zimbabwe’s higher education and how it compromised the quality of higher education teaching and learning. The article adopts a qualitative paradigm, drawing on structure and agency theoretical view point to offer deeper insight into how higher education massification policies compromised the delivery of quality education in the Zimbabwean context of higher education. The article provides a detailed description of the way in which structures and agency have been constrained by the massification of higher education in Zimbabwe. The article also demonstrates how the critical realist theory of structure and agency can contribute towards a deeper understanding of mass education and quality decline.