By Alexander Nkosi
I just read an article written by Ambassador Emmanuel Mwamba, where he is saying that the K324 million released for schools for term one is not enough to catter for their needs. He argued that K324 million for 9352 primary and secondary schools is not enough as it gives us an average of K34,644.
I will not dwell on whether it is accurate to add primary schools and secondary schools and simply get the average or whether to simply bunch up urban and rural schools that clearly have different needs, but I will focus more on why the step taken by government is the right one.
At some point in my career, I was M&E Lead for the biggest education projects in the country by then. I interacted with schools, both rural and urban across nine provinces. I got to appreciate some of the serious challenges they faced. While these schools received small grants from government, sometimes they could go for months without receiving these grants and when they did, it was mostly only part payment which wasn’t even enough to cover what they owed. We have all seen how grant aided institutions, including the few universities, have struggled the past years. The situation was worse at district level and worse still in schools.
The other thing is that while learners paid some fees, not everyone managed to pay while others only made part payments. Since these are public schools, they were instructed not to chase learners who hadn’t paid. At some point a well known senior government official even instructed schools to accept in-kind payment like goats, chicken maize etc.
So what has changed? Leaners from grade 1 to 12 in day schools no longer have to pay and those in boarding schools can access sponsorship under CDF. This is definitely a step in the right direction. We all understand the huge debt overhang and other serious economic challenges we face. With time, especially after debt restructuring and once the economy starts recovering, Zambia can extend free education to boarding schools and expand tertiary education scholarships.
The other positive is that whereas previously a term would end without these schools receiving money from government and significant payment from learners, the situation is now different as three weeks before schools open, funds have already been released. In most cases it might actually work better than when they used to charge some fees but struggled to get this money in full and on time.
In conclusion, like every project, there is learning to be done and we will definitely get better as we go. If not already addressed, I’m sure government will look into the issue of Daily Classified Workers. One immediate solution would be to cover them under CDF if a quick ammendment can be made. Pending release of CDF, they can be covered for a month or two under the grants they have received.
Thank you.