Areas related to teaching, and quality control should go to the Ministry of Education. Areas related to child care, survival and protection should go to Councils and relevant departments of the Ministry of Community Development and Child Services, Ministry of Sport, Youth and Social Development and the Ministry of Health. Efforts should be made to establish closer co-operation among the key Ministries in the area of ECCED especially in terms of data on services available to children.

• The Ministry of Education should take the role of licencing early childhood learning centres.
• There is need to include rural areas in plans to expand ECCED.

The problems in the primary education sector experienced over the decade have been addressed in the Basic Education Sub-Sector Investment Programme (BESSIP) of the Ministry of Education. BESSIP has identified goals and strategies that are relevant to universalisation of quality basic education in the country.

Communities, cooperating partners, NGOs and citizens at large should support the goals and objectives of BESSIP which are:-

• To expand access at Grades 1-7 and reverse the decline in enrollment in order to achieve 100% net enrollment by the year 2005.

• To continue to improve access to and quality of Upper Basic (grades8 – 9) to achieve 100% enrollment by 2015.

• To provide a wide rage of learning opportunities in order to broaden access to education.
• To enhance the quality and relevance of Basic Education by improving pre-service and in-service teacher education and reviewing curriculum empower children with literacy, numeracy, life skills and attributes that will enable them to participate fully in personal, community and national development, as well as effectively manage the challenges to life.
• To improve the supply of Educational materials, and in particular to attain a pupil/textbook ration of 2:1 by the year 2005.
• To provide training opportunities for effective teaching and management of the new enrollment targets.
• To provide sufficient infrastructure and school furniture to accommodate enrollment targets.
• To eliminate imbalances by achieving parity in gender and urban/rural enrollments and ensuring enrollment of the vulnerable and children with special needs.
• To improve the nutrition and health status of Basic Education pupils
• To provide an enabling institutional framework for efficient and effective management of education at all levels.
• To create accountable and transparent systems for financial management and procurement
• To create comprehensive and responsive management information systems for informed decision making.
• Financial support to community schools

In the course of implementing BESSIP special attention should be given to relieving the poor of the burden of user-fees and cost sharing measures by making education free of direct cost for them. Efforts should be made to ensure more participation of teachers and communities in education decisions that affect them.

• In order to establish levels of literacy, funds should be made available to the Central Statistical Office to carry out a comprehensive national literacy survey among those 15 and above.

• The Ministry of Community Development should prepare a directory of NGOs involved in the promotion of literacy activities in the country.

• The Ministry of Community Development should initiate the establishment of a central co-ordinating body for literacy activities comprising key stakeholders (Ministry & NGOs).

• The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services should promote integration of literacy instruction in government programmes related to agriculture, health and education for better living.

• The Ministry of Community Development in collaboration with the Department of Adult Education at the University of Zambia ,should establish nine literacy centres (1 in every province) for the production of materials, training of instructors and provision of short courses aimed at sustaining literacy skills among neoliterates and promoting income generating activities among women.

• The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services should identify and focus on reducing illiteracy among districts with less than 50% literacy rates to 25% by concentrating primarily on female literacy programmes.

• The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services should set up rural libraries along side literacy centres aimed at promoting a reading culture.

• The Ministry of Community Development should upgrade the padagogic skills for 344 literacy cadres through provision of a graded training training programme offered through in-service and distance education.

• The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services should establish a data bank on literacy.

• In line with EFA goals, the Ministry of Broadcasting and Information should clearly articulate the goals and strategies for EFA.

• The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting services should play a co-ordinating role for Education for Better Living.

• In line with EFA goals, TEVETA should clearly articulate the goals and strategies for EFA

• TEVETA should play a co-ordinating role for training in essential skills.

In order to keep the EFA torch burning there is need to revisit the EFA goals, targets and strategies for the future The vision should be informed by the democratisation process and the development needs of the country.

• The EFA task force should be revitalised and an EFA secretariat co-ordinated by the Director of Planning working with key stakeholders should be established.
• Concerted efforts should be made to support the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt cancellation and a large part of the savings arising from the cancellation should go to education.

• There is need for capacity building in data collection, analysis and utilisation in all the units concerned with EFA
• Efforts should be made to sustain the achievements realised so far in all the EFA initiatives including advancing the innovations which have been developed over the decade.
• EFA assessment should be an ongoing exercise to provide indicators of the developments taking place in education and the constraints that stand in the way of effective progress towards set goals and targets.

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