Educational Facilities

To attain the goal of creating 1.2 million school places, the Ministry of Education and its cooperating partners embarked on a programme of school rehabilitation and construction

which resulted into:

More than 2,300 classrooms and 1,100 teachers’ houses; 2,100 pit latrines and 100-water borne toilets;

Rehabilitation of more than 2,100 classrooms and 1,200 teachers’ houses

Creation of 2,325 new classrooms translated into provision of 93,000 new school places (7.8% of the intended goal ). The average annual increase in school places was thus 10,000 which was below the estimated 120,000 school places annually between 1990 and the year 2000.

Table 6 – 18 and figure 6 – 16 show the rehabilitation and construction work done in two years between 1996 and 1998.

Figure 6-16

The goal of absorbing marginalised groups such as girls, the disabled, street children and orphans, was partially met in community schools established by various agencies in communities.

Development of Community Schools

Community schools emerged as a response to the unmet demand for school places among the poor and other marginalised groups. These schools are inexpensive, close to home, less demanding in entry requirements and are managed by communities. In tuition community schools emphasize inculcation of literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills.

The number of community schools grew from 55 in 1996 to 373 in 1999. Equally, enrolments increased from 6,599 in 1996 to 47,276 in 1999. The number of registered community schools registered with the Zambia Community Schools Secretariat (ZCSS) increased seven times in three years from 1996 to 1999. In ZCSS, an umbrella NGO, was formed in 1997 to enable communities to participate in the running of community schools. Because not all community schools are registered with the ZCSS, their number are much higher. The increase can be attributed to the facilitating role of the government which has encouraged instead of discouraged the growth of these types of school. If the growth in the number of these schools continues they will in fact be another alternative path to accessing basic education on the part of children.

 In 1998 a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the Ministry of Education and Zambia Community Schools Secretariat (ZCSS) which recognised the role played by the community schools in the provision of education and obliged the ministry to provide learning materials, educational advisors and pay an agreed number of trained teachers

Figure 6-17

Figure 6-19

Figure 6-20

6.2..8 Procurement of furniture

Between 1990 and 1998 more than 160,000 desks were procured and distributed to schools. Despite this achievement the shortfall in supply of school desks ranged from 70% for Luapula to 40% for Western and Southern provinces. Because of this shortage, many pupils learn while sitting on the floor, logs, bricks, mats or over crowded few desks.

6.2.9 Procurement Distribution and Use of Educational Materials.

In 1991 the goal was to enable all primary school children have access to appropriate and relevant learning materials in core subjects. Some of the efforts directed at realising this goal were mobilisation of resources, revision of syllabi, establishment of a mini library at each school, liberalisation of the provision of educational materials and streamlining of the process of procurement.

Between 1991 and 1998 a total of 14.5 million textbooks, supplementary readers and teachers’ guides for grades 1 - 7 were procured and distributed. This led to improvements in textbook-pupil ratio of 1:2 in some subjects. The main problems encountered in the procurement and distribution of books were:-

Wear and tear in an environment where the book life span is only 3 years;

not all distributed books reached their targeted schools;

lack of transport;

inaccessible road network;

inadequate funding;

lack of teacher capacity to use the books productively;

delays caused by the procurement procedures; and lack of store rooms

Figure 6-21

Other achievements the procurement and supply of education materials were:

Syllabi in core subjects were revised, produced and distributed and teachers oriented to their use.

68,000 library books were produced and distributed.

Anti-Aids books, SPARK manual of life skills, Community School Calendars and Zambia Education Kit (ZEDUKIT) were produced and distributed.

A globe, a map, educational charts, usable chalk board and mathematical instruments were supplied to almost each school.

In an effort to sensitise the entire society to the importance of girl-child education 2,977 girl- child calendars, 5000 PAGE News letters, 10,000 girl-child education kit and 10,000 copies of Module 7 for teacher-in-service training were produced and distributed.

Many of the schools were still under supplied. This in turn affected learning achievement levels in different grades of basic education. This was confirmed by the SAQMEC study in late 1995.

Demand, Supply and Retention of Teachers

The goal was to produce 4,400 teachers. every year between 1990 and 2000. The annual output of teachers from colleges was 2,226 resulting in a shortfall of 2,174 teachers. As a result there was a dependence on untrained teachers. On the whole, the majority of teachers in primary schools are trained. Untrained teachers contribute only 23% of the total number of teachers. A large number of the untrained teachers are concentrated in rural areas. Since the 80s the admission to teacher training colleges has been the completion of grade 12.

Distribution of Teachers by Geographical Regions

The distribution of teachers has not been balanced. The tendency among female teachers in particular has been to seek postage in urban areas. Close to 45% of the female teachers are found in urban centers like Lusaka and Copperbelt; Provincial and District urban centres. This is attributed to the fact that majority of female teachers are married and have to live with their husbands. The unmarried female teachers are reluctant to accept rural postings because of poor prospects for marriage. Studies on this subject have found that some female teachers try to obtain fake marriage certificates in order to prove their ‘marital status’.

Figure 6-23

The number of trained male teachers in primary schools is almost the same to those of trained female teachers. The disparity in the numbers is among untrained teachers where the number of male untrained teachers was by 1998 almost twice that of the females. Table 6- clearly shows the differences in the distribution of male and female trained teachers. The number of female trained teachers in urban areas like Lusaka and Copperbelt is almost twice those of males.

6.2.13 Pupil - Teacher Ratios

Much has been done to improve pupil- teacher ratios. In 1990 the ratio was 44 but dropped to 39.1 in 1995, and to 37 in 1996. There were variations in pupil-teacher ratios between geographical locations. Urban provinces had higher ratios than rural areas because of large and over-crowded classes in urban areas caused by high demand for classes.

Figure 6-24

TABLE 6-26 Pupil - teacher ratios (1996 – 1998)

 Pupil per trained teacher ratio was higher than the general pupil teacher It was higher in Eastern, North Western and Southern provinces because teachers are not willing to stay in such rural areas.

6.2.14 Attrition levels of Teachers

In 1990 there were 28,480 trained teachers. This number increased to 31,627 in 1996. The target was to increase by 93% but due to lack of resources for teacher training this target was not met. One significant observation about the Zambian teacher training colleges is that while 2,226 teachers are being trained 1,500 teachers are being lost annually from the system through various reasons. This leaves a net of 700 teachers which is far lower than the required teacher supply.

Teacher attrition in Zambia’s public schools is increasingly becoming a major source of concern. Records show that 680 died in 1996, 624 in 1997 and 1,331 died between and October 1998. They died from many causes including HIV/AIDS. Those who are remaining are underpaid, poorly housed, demoralised, poorly deployed, provided with little support in the field and given little instructional time.

Steps being undertaken to reduce attrition rates of teachers include:

increased teacher supply from the teacher training colleges;

sensitisation of teachers on HIV/AIDS;

rural hardship allowances;

increased salaries;

high salary entry notch for rural areas;

decentralisation of payroll;

home ownership scheme for teachers; and

freezing postings to urban areas.

Inadequate public financing underlies much of the Ministry's inability to meet its obligations to provide the necessary facilities and ensure universal availability of quality education. The scale of this inadequacy is apparent from the following:

actual government spending per student, at all levels averaged US$50 in 1996;

public spending per primary student in 1996 was $29 for all purposes, including teachers' salaries;

currently, about 11% of the total public budget is spent on education compared to between 20-25% in neighbouring countries;

in recent years, expenditure on primary education has accounted for about 2.5% of the GDP, 8–10% in neighbouring countries, and 5% in Sub-Saharan Africa;

Public current expenditure on primary education has since 1990 been increasing in nominal terms as a share of total education expenditure and national income. In 1990, Primary Education expenditure as a percentage of total expenditure on education and national Income stood at 28.7 and 0.8 percent respectively. This expenditure was almost doubled by 1998. However, the increase does not take into account the fluctuations in prices due to lack of monetary stability. On the other hand, public current expenditure on primary education per pupil as a percentage of National Income per capita has almost remained below ten percent since 1990. The proportion of the GNP going to primary education has remained below 1.5% .

Figure 6-25

Figure 6-26

Figure 6-27

Figure 6-28

6.2.16 Learning achievement

The goal for learning achievement was that at least 80% of 14 year olds, beginning school age at 7, should achieve or surpass the competencies defined for grade 7 by the year 2000.

The process of defining the learning competencies has started beginning with grade 4 level. The development of a national testing instrument has been done. Nevertheless, the establishment of benchmarks is in its infancy.

6.2.16.1 The SACMEQ Study at Grade 6 1995

The Southern Africa Consortium for the Measurement of Educational Quality (SACMEQ) study was sponsored by the International Institute of Educational Planning. The study had specially prepared tests that were designed to measure reading ability of Grade 6 pupils. The tests indicated minimum and desirable performance standards. The following were the findings of the study:

only 25.8% of the Grade 6 pupils reached minimum mastery level.

only 2.4% reached the desirable mastery level.

with the exception of schools in the Western and Luapula provinces, rural schools performed lower than urban schools;

boys performed better than girls. 28% of the boys as compared to 23.1% of the girls attained minimum mastery level.

pupils from high socio-economic groups performed better than those from low socio-economic groups.

 Table 6-27: Reading achievement of grade 6 in the SACMEQ Study

The study was an indicator of the levels of achievement in schools. Factors which might have contributed to low levels of learning achievement included:

short instructional time.

Poverty in the homes;

low teacher morale;

too many untrained teachers;

inadequate supply of educational materials

use of a foreign language, English, in the school instead of their home language

teachers not trained to promote a reading culture.

6.2.16.National Assessment at Grade 5

The National Assessment System (NAS) has been established to measure levels of learning achievement in reading and numeracy. NAS also assessed contextual factors and their effect on learning achievement. It is designed for pupils in Grade 5 and implemented by the Examinations Council of Zambia. The assessment was first conducted in mid- 1999. However, data have not yet been processed.

6.2.5 Competency testing at Grade 4

The National Education For All Conference in 1991 suggested that clearly defined national competency based on achievement should be established in such skill areas as literacy and numeracy. The 1996 National Education Policy went a step further by calling on the appropriate authority to specify the levels of competency pupils should attain at different stages of basic education. Progress has been made in this direction. Literacy and numeracy competencies have been clearly specified for Grade 4. Tests have also been developed and administered to pupils in the field. Data is being processed and by the end of 1999 the results of competency testing will be disseminated.