ZANEC Disappointed By Neglect For Education In Budget

The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) has voiced its disappointment over the persistently poor funding for education in Zambia, reaffirmed in the government’s latest budget for 2021. 

In a statement to media, ZANEC executive director George Hamusanga said the government’s neglect towards education was demonstrated by consistent reductions in educational spending over the past five years. 

He highlighted that education had constituted 20.2% of the budget in 2015 but had now fallen to 11.5% for 2021 - a reduction of 46.3%. 

The allocation for 2021 is also lower than last year’s budget when one considers the sharp rise in inflation and depreciation of the Kwacha over the past year, Hamusanga said. 

He added his disappointment that the challenges presented to education by the coronavirus this year had not been redressed by better funding in 2021.

“The failure for the 2021 Education and Skills Sector budget to allocate enough resources to remediate the loss of learning during the COVID 19 period demonstrates the government’s lack of political will to mitigate the looming education quality crisis,” he said.

ZANEC had previously criticised the government’s response to education during the pandemic, calling 2020 a ‘lost year’ for most learners.

Mr Hamusanga concluded that the budget had failed to provide adequate financing for the education and skills targets set out in the 7th National Development Plan, vision 2030 and the Education and Skill Sector Plan. He therefore called for a guarantee of social cash transfers to help learners recover from the impact of Covid-19.

“ZANEC further hopes that government will prioritize the disbursement of the K2.3 billion allocated to social cash transfer to vulnerable households with learners who have difficulties to pay school fees to mitigate the impact of COVID-19,” he said.