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EDUCATION IN  ZAMBIA

Zambia got independence in 1964, and the country’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda, led the country as a one-party state until 1991, when a multi-party system was introduced. But in reality, Zambia’s democracy is still not working very well. Decisions are primarily made by the ruling party elite, while parliament and district authorities have very little say on matters of planning and budgeting. Theoretically, the citizens have been allowed to influence the planning process through a decentralisation reform, which was launched in 2004, but there is still a great lack of structures that can effectively give citizens a more direct influence on the decision-making processes.

it has been estimated that 34% of seven years old children are denied  admission to primary school each year because of lack of places. More than 600, 000 children between the ages of seven are not in school and the majority are girls.”

Education in Zambia has improved a lot since independence, but a lot more still needs to be done. The growing population from 3,319,538 in 1980 to 10 million people in 2002. It has shown that rapid growth of Zambian citizen has drastically influenced the education sector in Zambia.” The numbers of school places are now no longer sufficient to take in all the children. It’s a big challenge to orphans to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC’s) to access education from time to time as the sector has experienced the disequilibrium. The impact is mainly ignored as its couples itself with economic trends of lack of employment as a source of income to sustain the ongoing school children.

Kabsy Consultancy Services a leading firm academic consultancy firm in Africa has embarked on a programme of helping more African educanalists to realise their full potential. A project was launched in Kabwe, Zambia early October 2009. Kabsy Consultancy services is empowering Zambian companies with development, social work skills and infotech fundamentals. The main aim is in promoting education policy in Zambia and meeting vision 2030.

It’s in this line that the government the republic of Zambia, in 2002 introduced free basic education from grade one to grade seven, so as to allow number of orphans and vulnerable children to access education. Other policy key principles were in decentralization of the education system, building of more schools, and deployment of more teachers who were waiting to be sent in various schools. Improvement of teacher’s allowances, especially housing allowances to teachers working in rural areas setting.

Having implemented the free basic education policy from 2002, what has been the impact on the target group? Studies on the implementation of social policy and its impact on the target group have been done. The reports show that the education system of Zambia has denied access to the orphans and vulnerable children despite introduction free primary education. “The OVC’s’ are still deniable admission in primary school and this forces them to find themselves in community schools. To those that have attended school in available public learning institutions, quality of services being provided still remains very poor. About one third of Zambia’s primary does not go to school. They stay away because school is expensive, or stay away or because they have to work. For those that attend, they drop out rates offering girls in particular after grade 4.

In most rural areas, parent of female children see their daughters as their source of riches. They would rather sell their children, in the name of marriage at an early age in order to lay their hands in the bride price. They do not realize the importance of educating the girl child which is very saddening. There has got to be more awareness made in the rural areas. ”

Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, CSPR (2000: 10) records that, “for those that stay in school, the number of teachers is consistently shrinking, and in rural areas it is easy to find schools with only teachers. Children are often hungry, which reduces learning and development. The schools have little or no funds for books or other learning materials.” In line of the above, it has been observed that there is a need of improving current infrastructure in the country, if development in the education has to be revealed to its maximum potential.

Another factor that hinders the progress of development is HIV/AIDS. This ever-isolating scourge is drawing Zambia back, in many ways. Zambia is suffering from brain drain because most of our education citizens are dying a premature death, which is damaging to Zambia. In addition, the breadwinners of families are being lost and their families left to live in poverty. According to International HIV/AIDS Alliance (2003:6) writes to say; “some children may pull out of school altogether because of fear of getting HIV from their teachers, this is particularly so in rural areas where most children are still be misinformed about HIV/AIDS infection.”

Other side of the picture on HIV/AIDS is that, the children are left homelessly without having anyone to support them and this tend to disorganize a home in the event if the death of a man of the house as the women will not be able to take care of the children without the help of extended family.

According to Mwansa A,C (2004) as reflected in free basic education policy implementation policy implementation assessment, reports that, “ enrolments increased marginally after the introduction of free basic education policy. On the other hand the, applications declined in 2003 especially in rural areas. It would seem that the causal factor was not only major barrier to access. Though the guidelines from the ministry of education did not impose any limit on enrolments, one third of the applicant were turned away , suggesting that are other considerations are equally important in determine access to education. The rate of girls turned away was slightly higher than that of boys. One of the reasons why a third of the applicant re turned away from school is the inadequacy of school infrastructure.”

In view of the analysis presented above, I therefore recommend that, if free basic education policy has to be effectively implemented there is a need of the government to build more infrastructure facilities such s schools, universities, more education colleges. There is also a need of improving teacher’s conditions in terms of housing allowances and salaries, if more graduates have to join the teaching profession.

In the context of poverty and education, the government needs to build more state companies rather than bringing selfish investors, who aim only in making profit and taking t into their respective countries. Companies for Zambian will have a heart for people and hence people will move from being exploited to more empowered with economical resources that will fight poverty, HIV/AIDS and unemployment.

Conclusion.

Social Policy is a system of interrelated principles that are formulated in line with the problem at hand, its aim is in seeing to it that people lives are improved and people re in a state of social and economical dependence. One of such areas is education policies, which re formulated in meeting the needs of people in accessing education for all. However, Zambian education policy has to be clearly articulated and fine tuned so as to realistically meet the needs of the Zambian people.  They must take cognizance of the paucity of national resources, be complotted by professionals such as social workers, and incorporates inputs from grassroots movements.