In Rwanda, something rare is happening, government schools have gotten so good that private schools are shutting down for lack of students.
It started in 2007 with free lower-secondary education, expanded to 12 years by 2012. But Rwanda didn’t just remove fees, it invested. Resulting in nearly 2,700 new classrooms, over 250,000 free laptops to public schools, a textbook for every subject, school feeding, and 19% of the national budget going to education.
The resulted in private school enrolment nearly halved, from 101,510 students in 2012 to 79,076. Over 30 private schools closed in a single year. When private school owners asked government for a bailout, Rwanda said no, public money stays with public schools.
Zambia’s free education policy, launched in 2021, shares the same starting instinct, and it’s genuinely popular. 8 in 10 Zambian families say they’ve benefited, and 2 million more children are now in school.
But the comparison gets harder once you look at quality. Zambia’s own Parliamentary Budget Office found overcrowding, high teacher-pupil ratios, and missed completion targets. Some Eastern Province classrooms have over 100 learners, with students sharing one textbook between six or seven.
The real lesson from Rwanda isn’t just “spend more.” It’s sequencing: Rwanda built classrooms ahead of demand. Zambia has largely been building in response to demand already there.
Rwanda took nearly two decades to get here. Zambia is five years in. The question is whether the investment can catch up before classrooms fill past capacity, not just whether more money gets spent.