Assessment of factors affecting the development of education system in Zambia from 1990 to 2022

Abstract

Lack of effective education is often highlighted as one of the main factors hindering the development of African countries. Zambia is among the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that exhibit some of the lowest national GDP indexes and the lowest literacy rates and additionally accounts for a good number of out-of-school children globally. Despite gradually implemented reforms, Zambian educational systems still face numerous challenges and do not meet global standards. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to find out the key factors hindering the development of Zambian education system from reaching global standards. This study contributes to a better understanding of Zambian education as one of the critical factors in the social and economic development of this country. Scoping literature review method was used in which inclusion and exclusion criteria was used to select existing research evidence, statistics and reports. After a careful application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 22 articles formed the basis of analysis for the study in which thematic analysis was employed to come out with the findings.

The findings have revealed that a myriad of factors are hindering development of Zambian education system. Among the reported factors are education costs and household expenditure, learning conditions, completion rates and drop-outs, language barriers and limited access to good quality education as well as teaching quality. The study recommends that more targeted attention must be paid to the funding and training of teachers both pre-training and in-service training and also monitoring of fast-tract training programs implementation by the government should be enhanced in order to minimise the potential of failure of those programs.