The Provision of Free Education and its Sustainability: The Zambian Scenario

The Free Education Provision in Zambia and its sustainability study was enthused from the monitoring activities and experience the researchers had in the implementation of Free Education Policy. The Ministry of Education has been charged with the responsibility to provide Quality, Lifelong, Education for All which is accessible, inclusive and relevant to individual, National and Global needs and Value systems (MoE, 1996) [8]. In actualising this vision and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 -2030, the Ministry has been implementing different measures to ensure education is accessible to all school going children and the entire Citizenry at large. Education fees (Tuition, Examinations and PTA) have been a huge barrier to accessing education especially to the vulnerable in society, thus, the New Dawn Government has scrapped off all the education fees from Early Childhood to Secondary levels in all Public School to ensure stable socio - economic development of the nation. Most of literature on free education by other researchers has focussed on the impact and effects of free education however, this study focussed on how the Free Education can be sustained through sufficient sustainable flow of funds to schools for quality education provision in Zambia. Mixed method design was employed to gather the data from Education administrators and school administrators across six districts of Lusaka Province. The research findings show that Free Education policy has received positive response as could be seen from the enormous increase in enrolment levels after its implementation in 2022. However, the positive response to free education policy has come with many challenges ranging from inadequate classroom space and toilets for proper sanitation, inadequate water supply, inadequate specialised rooms and insufficient teaching and learning materials and equipment, increased teacher- pupil ratio just to mention but a few. The research shows that the government has already started addressing the challenges through the completion of incomplete 115 secondary schools as well as commencement of 120 new schools across the country, mass deployment of 30,496 teachers in 2022, increase in budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Education in 2024 from 13.9% in 2023 to 15.4% in 2024, increased CDF allocation from K28.3 Million in 2023 to K30.6 Million in 2024 which has a component of the Education which addresses the needs of the vulnerable learners and approval of ZEPH Board members’ to ensure teaching and learning materials are provided. All these milestones showed sufficient funds are required to for sustainable quality provision of Free Education for ALL. The study informs all the stake holders of education on the need for creating a National Education Scheme and prudent use of and proper accountability of Free Education funds for quality education provision in Zambia.