What is the Importance of the Education Structure in Zambia?
Education has massive social importance, specifically during the modern-day industrialized societies. The educational structure and the way it has been delivered and accepted have undergone changes over time, but the primary objective remains unchanged. Apart from the social importance education and training paves the way for an individual’s career and financial stability and shapes the life path overall. In this article, we will speak about education in Zambia and take a peek into how it is contributing to the development of society as a whole.
School education in Zambia is divided into three levels: primary (7 years), junior secondary (2 years), and upper secondary (3 years). This is followed by higher education which has the standard duration for an undergraduate and postgraduate degree.
As stated by UNICEF Zambia has achieved near-universal primary school completion levels. The national statistics indicate a completion rate of 91.8 percent at Grade 7. But there consist considerable regional disparities and school dropouts in the certain region remain similar to the graphs out of which girls continue to be at a disadvantage with a large number of them dropping out in the upper primary and secondary grades. Even the levels of transition to junior secondary and senior secondary levels remain considerably poor.
Thus, school education in Zambia is yet to improve crossing the regional boundaries. However, the higher education sector in the country has seemingly upgraded by many folds with the universities such as Copperbelt University, Kitwe, the Zambia Adventist University, Monze, the Northwest University, Ndola, Cavendish University, and the University of Zambia in Lusaka, and many other flagging up. The universities are not only offering quality education but are also hosting international students.
Both the private and public higher education colleges in Zambia are offering a multitude of options to choose from with almost all the major vocational programs. The higher education act No 4 of 2013 governs all the accreditation and registration of the educational institutions. There are around 54 registered private higher education institutions and 9 public institutions. The numbers imply that the private higher education colleges in Zambia are doing better as the number seems to swell as compared to the public institutions.
However, it is to be mentioned that not all higher education colleges in Zambia are delivering quality education, some institutions are yet in the incubation stage and will need a couple of years more to establish themselves. It is interesting to see that higher education in Zambia is not only supporting the students of the country but the neighboring African countries and some of these colleges run with multi-campus located across the country or even beyond the territorial boundaries.
Countries like Zambia are still dealing with lack of infrastructure, poverty, dropouts, and many other socio-political crises, hovering on these points it can be summarized that the improvement of education in Zambia both at the primary and higher levels can bring great changes to the socio-economic status of the country.
