ZIPPA
ZAMBIA INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
Journal
Theme: EDUCATION
Features
Freeway - Power to Parents
The Revolution of Low Cost Private Schools
Community Schools: Hope for Poor Urban
Children
Chains of Low Cost Private Schools
Education Vouchers
ZIPPA Board: Muyunda Mwanalushi (Chair), Jonathan Chileshe (V/Chair), Murray Sanderson (Exec.
Sec.), Wilphred Katoto (Hon. Treas.), Moses Banda, Ernest Beele, Mary Kakumbi, Charles Lungu,
Chearyp Mkandawire-Sokoni, Sara Ngulube
Freeway
Power to Parents
Zambians aged over 40 can well recall the Kaunda
era, when customers had to queue for hours outside
state shops to obtain 'essential commodities'. Since
privatization shopping is now straightforward. Goods
are available and, by and large, the customer is king,
or queen. There is a wide choice of products of
varying standards and prices.
But education is different. In this area of immense
national importance the customers - meaning
parents - have little choice. Standards are generally
low, with rare exceptions. Even so, it is hard to find
vacancies. Those in control are education providers,
not parents. There may be exceptions, but that is the
general picture.
The articles that follow present ideas and examples
which show how this situation could be changed for
the better so as to offer parents, both rich and poor,
more information, higher standards, better service,
and even the power to pay.
First, we take a look at the present situation. In an
article about low cost private schools for the poor in
'developing' countries Prof. James Tooley, who has
made a world-wide study of the subject, describes
how and why even very poorly equipped and staffed
private schools are often chosen by poor parents in
1
April - June 2010
Reports on Performance Help Schools Improve
Pre-school and Nursery Education
Quotations of the month
Young People Need Choice in Education
Next Step on Charters
Membership
preference to apparently superior government
schools.
Then comes an article about community schools in
Ndola. It describes their problems and achievements,
and goes on to suggest that, after first receiving
much more government help, they should remain
independent as privately run schools for the poor.
Another lengthy article on the same subject, for
which space was lacking, talks of Lusaka having 300
community schools with a total of perhaps 150,000
students, and concludes that they should be taken
over by the government.
A second article by Prof. Tooley describes how 'chain'
schools can work together to raise standards and use
funds more effectively. It adds that this is an area
where international help is available.
How about funding? A description follows of the
school voucher system proposed by Milton Friedman
and implemented in several countries around the
world, including Chile and Sweden. It explains how
government-financed school vouchers can give
parents the power to select the schools of their choice,
and thereby to promote healthy competition. This
system is loved by parents but feared by teachers.
Another stimulating idea is the report card system
operated in Canada, which publishes details of school
performance. This gives parents information on
which to base their choice of schools, and so acts as a
valuable influence on schools of all kinds to improve
their performance.
This series of articles ends with a thought-provoking
article on pre-school education, and also on earlier
child development. This suggests that parents
themselves have a vital part to play before formal
education begins.
As regards education in general, will Zambians
continue to accept whatever is on offer, or will they
demand a better deal for their children and
grandchildren?
The Revolution of Low Cost
Private schools
By James Tooley
An education revolution is sweeping the developing
world. In the slums and shanty towns of Asia and
Africa, poor people are abandoning public schools en
masse. They're appalled by its low standards.
Instead, they're sending their children to low cost
private schools that are burgeoning in some of the
poorest places on this planet.
For the last decade I've been on an extraordinary
journey across sub-Saharan Africa, India and China.
I've been cataloguing and, more recently, assisting in
the development of low cost private schools. For
anyone interested in how the poor are learning to
help themselves, it is a wonderfully uplifting story.
Recently, I was in the shanty town of Makoko, Nigeria,
home to 100,000 people who live in wooden huts on
stilts over the black waters of the Lagos lagoon. At
the entrance to the slum, there are three public
schools, all on the same site. Visiting them is
dispiriting. In one classroom, the young teacher is
fast asleep at his desk, not aroused even when the
children rise to chant noisy greetings to their visitor.
In another, 95 children sit and do nothing while the
teacher reads a newspaper. Other teachers are
absent - they've been allocated to teach these slum
children, have to travel two or three hours to get
there from their homes in the plusher suburbs, and
don't really think it worth their time and effort.
It's all in stark contrast to what is happening inside
the slum proper. In the 32 low cost private schools
my researchers found, teachers are energetically
teaching - they have to be, for if they fall asleep in
front of their charges, they'll be fired; the
entrepreneurs know that they are accountable to
parents. Typical of the schools is 'KPS' - Ken Ade
Private School. Its owner had set up the school in
1990, starting with only five children in the church
hall, with parents paying fees on a daily basis when
they could afford to do so. Now he has about 200
children, from Nursery to Primary grade 7. His fees
2
are about $4 per month - around 8% of the expected
monthly earnings of a fisherman in the shanty town -
but 25 children come for free: 'If a child is orphaned,
what can I do? I won't send her away,' he tells me.
Parents at KPS are all poor - the men usually
fishermen, the mothers fishmongers. They know
why they choose private school: One father told me:
“We pass the public school many days and see the
children outside, doing nothing. But in the private
schools, we see them everyday working hard. In the
public school, children are abandoned.'
It's not just in Makoko: My research teams have
combed slums and shanty towns of urban areas
elsewhere in Lagos State, Nigeria, and in Ghana,
Kenya and India, looking for all schools, public and
private - not depending on official data, as many of
the private schools will be unregistered, off the
official radar. What we found is remarkable. In the
poor urban areas surveyed, the vast majority of
school children were found to be in 'budget' private
schools. For instance, in the poor urban areas of
Lagos State, Nigeria, 75 percent of schoolchildren
were in private schools. In terms of quality, teacher
absenteeism was lower and teacher commitment -
the proportion of teachers actually teaching when my
researchers called unannounced - higher, in the
private schools for the poor than in government
schools. And private schools outperform the
government schools too in the key curriculum
subjects. In Lagos State, for instance, the mean
math score advantage over government schools was
about 14 and 19 percentage points respectively in
private registered and unregistered schools, while in
English it was 22 and 29 percentage points.
Many parents have tried public education but don't
feel it's good enough for their children, so have
moved their children back to low cost private schools.
Nowhere is this truer than in countries which have
recently brought in free public education - Kenya, for
instance, where it was introduced in 2003. One
father I spoke to lived in Kibera, one of the largest
slums in Africa, where half a million people are
crammed into corrugated iron and cardboard huts in
an area the size of Manhattan's central park. He had
moved his daughter to the public school on the
periphery of the slum when it had been made free,
only to become disillusioned by huge class sizes and
teachers who no longer bothered. He had an
understanding of economics that would have
warmed the heart of Milton Friedman: he told me 'if
you go to the market and are offered free fruit and
vegetables, they'll be rotten. If you want fresh
produce, you have to pay for it.’
I like talking to these parents. Hearing the critics of
low cost private education, one is struck by the
assumption that ordinary, poor parents cannot
possibly be equipped to make proper decisions about
their children's education. Talking to poor parents
gives the lie to that every single time. One family I
know well sends their daughter, now 14, to a private
school in a fishing village along Ghana's coconut-
lined coast. They've thought long and hard about
their choice of private school. The father, Joshua, a
fine looking fisherman who takes his boat out at 3 am
every morning into the Atlantic surf, understood the
virtues of a private school very well indeed:
‘My father didn't allow me to go to school. I want to
strive hard, so that my daughter can go to school. We
enrolled her in the government school, but we felt
that her learning was declining. The government
school doesn't have anyone monitoring the teaching
or telling them when it's time for class or time to
teach. Classes are not on a fixed schedule... The
reason why the private schools are better than the
government school is because there is a private
owner. If you don't teach as expected, you'll be fired
and replaced'. His wife, Margaret, who smokes the
fish caught by her husband to sell in the market, put it
a different way: 'In the private school, they love and
care so much for the kids, and are very serious with
the teaching and learning. That's why we decided to
put our child there.'
Author: James Tooley is the author of 'The
Beautiful Tree: how the world'spoorest people
are educatingthemselves', (Penguin, 2009)
Community Schools: Hope for
Poor Urban Children
By Lawrence Temfwe
In Zambia today many children in low-income
communities have no access to conventional
schooling. In some urban districts up to a third of the
children in primary schools attend what are known as
community schools. These schools are operated by
unpaid and untrained volunteers who teach in
community buildings which are of very inadequate
standards.
In recent years, “the number of community schools
has grown exponentially from 883 in 2000 to 2,129 in
2005.” More recent figures are not available, but the
number has only continued to grow. In 2007 the
Ministry of Education issued The Operational
Guidelines for Community Schools, which promised
to provide, among other things, “equitable financial
and material resources to all community schools.”
But this undertaking has not been met, and, most
disappointingly, the Education Act remains silent on
community schools.
Community schools play a vital role in most urban
3
districts. In Ndola they educate 33,964 children,
which is 29% of primary school enrollees. Though
most of these community schools have registered
with the District Education Office, resources and
support are still not provided. The two most pressing
needs are teacher training and equitable funding. If
only the Ministry of Education will attend to these, the
quality of education provided by community schools
can be greatly improved
First, teacher training. The main reason for the
success of community school teachers, despite
difficult situations, is their impressive commitment to
the education of the children in their community.
Because of this, the Ministry of Education does not
need to bring in trained teachers from outside the
community, but instead to provide training for the
existing teachers. Such training could be a short but
intensive course covering basic pedagogy. A four
month course, combined with continuous
assessment, would impart the basic skills needed to
provide a quality education. Hitherto there have
been few courses of this nature. But presently the
Jubilee Centre, a Christian NGO in Ndola, is running a
pilot training course for twelve teachers in three
community schools in the community of Mapalo.
These schools serve 632 children with an average
class size of 40 students. Before the course, their
teachers were largely untrained. During this course,
all teachers have demonstrated improvement in the
skills taught, i.e., setting goals, thinking critically,
planning purposefully, investing in children,
increasing effectiveness, and employing best
practices in the classroom. The Ministry of Education
should now provide serious training to complement
the remarkable commitment shown by community
school teachers.
Second, equitable funding. The Ministry of Education
must put in place a clear and transparent grant
process for the distribution of community school
funds. There have been countless stories about the
misallocation or disappearance of these resources.
There have even been stories of them being given to
schools which do not exist. The Ministry must provide
guidelines to make sure that funds are distributed in
an equitable manner. The guidelines must include a
rating rubric that explains how the funds are
distributed. Only when a clear and transparent grant
system is operational, will it be practicable for the
community schools as a whole to ask for additional
funding.
Once these challenges have been effectively tackled,
it will be appropriate to turn to the question, 'Should
Zambia's community schools become either private
schools or government schools, or should they
remain as an independent category?' We believe they
should be given a choice. If community schools meet
the requirements and want to become government
schools, let them be absorbed into the system. If
they want to continue to operate as community
schools with support from the government, they
should have that option. However, in order for
community schools to receive government support,
they should have to enroll a minimum of 70% of their
students from low-income families. This stipulation
will provide a clear distinction between private
schools and community schools.
There has to be an educational hope for the poor.
But it may not lie in government schools. It may just
lie with community schools, provided they receive
sufficient support from the government to make this
hope possible.
Author: Lawrence Temfwe is Executive Director,
Jubilee Centre, Ndola
Chains of Low Cost Private Schools
By James Tooley
Chains of low cost private schools have the potential
to transform the way education is delivered in
developing countries. Poor parents are currently
faced with three options when deciding on education:
They can send their children to a (free) government
school, a low cost private school, or not to school at
all. What chains of schools can do is to provide
parents with a fourth, better option- to send their
children to a higher-quality, low-cost private school.
There are four main sets of reasons why a brand-
name chain of low cost private schools would help
with improvements to quality:
The information problem
How can parents judge if one school is better than
another, so as to make the best choice for their
children? A brand name will help parents make
judgments in an informed way.
Teacher issues
In low-cost private schools the recruitment and
retention of qualified teachers are big problems.
Within a brand-name chain of schools, loyalty to the
brand and the possibility of new career paths through
the chain (e.g., as teacher, mentor, trainer, quality
inspector) encourages teacher retention and makes
extensive teacher training viable.
Innovations and improvements
Parents, students and entrepreneurs, as well as
budget school critics, all agree that quality
improvements are much needed, in terms of teacher
and management training, curriculum, technology
and administration. The economies of scale inherent
in a chain of schools can help fund these
improvements.
4
Other economy of scale advantages
A large scale chain of schools can also benefit when
purchasing goods and services. For instance,
curriculum materials, desks and chairs, hygiene and
safety features, and technology can all be purchased
more cheaply within a large scale chain than by
stand-alone schools.
Three years ago, I began advocating that investors
and entrepreneurs should set up chains of low cost
private schools. Jay Kimmelman came to learn of my
ideas, visited me and my team in Newcastle, and
went on to Kenya to set up New Globe Schools, a low
cost chain of schools helped with finance from
Deutsche Bank and Kellogg Foundation. While
President of the Education Fund for Orient Global of
Singapore, I helped set up Rumi Schools of
Excellence in Hyderabad, India. I've also been
involved in the creation of three embryonic chains of
schools elsewhere, Sunshine Fortune in China,
Empathy Learning Systems, India, and Omega
Schools Franchise Ltd, Ghana.
Each of the companies I'm involved in is taking the
problems of improving quality very seriously. We are
conducting intensive teacher training and developing
teacher mentoring programmes. We are devising
curriculum materials to help improve the quality of
what is learnt, and we are exploring ways of using
and funding school computer labs. It will be a very
long process, but already we are seeing positive
results in learning standards.
And something rather interesting is happening: we
are teaching by example. Some of the innovations
we have tried out in the schools are being imitated in
other schools. Take a very simple innovation: a
major problem is the ability of parents to save the
amount required for their termly fees. Cash in the
home can often be used for other immediate needs,
rather than be kept for school fees. And that's only
half the problem: parents must also save for school
uniform, books, etc. This all leads to some students
dropping out of private schools. So in Omega Schools
in Ghana, we instituted a daily fee, which included all
the funds required for tuition costs, as well as
uniform, books, exercise books, plus transport, food
and insurance. This is hugely popular with parents,
who no longer have to save, but can simply find the
funds each day to send with their children.
This brings me to a major reason why I believe going
with the low cost private sector might be a better way
forward than trying to improve the public sector, as
many people argue should be the correct response.
When agencies from outside try to improve
government provision, they may succeed while they
are directly involved. But schools and teachers tend
to revert to their preferred methods once the aid
missions have moved on. The reason: there are no
incentives to continue with the intervention. But in
the competitive markets of private education the
incentives lacking in traditional aid interventions are
everywhere, and paramount. School proprietors are
hungry for innovation. Why? First because, whatever
their critics may claim, many of them genuinely care
about children's education. On its own, this might be
enough for some to invest in new innovations. But,
it's coupled with another major incentive: proprietors
know that they are in an increasingly competitive
market. To succeed in it they need to show parents
that their school is special. If a method of learning
seems to have demonstrably better outcomes, they'll
want it for their schools. If a new method of payment
leads to an easier life for parents, as in the above
example in Ghana, they'll want it in their schools.
Such incentives are completely lacking in any
government system.
School operators and investors interested in
establishing low cost private school chains in Zambia
may wish to identify and contact existing chains with
an interest in expansion. Over 100 such school chains
are profiled on the international School Chain
Showcase at www.schoolchains.org.
Author: James Tooley is Professor of Education
Policy, Newcastle University, UK
Education Vouchers
By Eamonn Butler
Friedman recognizes that it is important to ensure
that children are properly educated regardless of
their parents' circumstances, and that it is necessary
for all individuals to have at least a basic standard of
education in a society based on voluntary co-
operation. The problem, he believes, requires a
mixture of public and private elements in its solution,
The proposal he makes is for a voucher to be given to
each parent representing a certain value(perhaps the
usual cost of providing a basic education to the
standards that were thought a desirable minimum).
Parents would then be able to 'spend' these vouchers
at any recognized school, adding to them with their
own money if they desired their children to attend a
school that was more expensive. This voucher could,
and should, be available for use at any school within
the government system as well as private ones.
Friedman believes that this proposal would
revolutionize education. The costs of running a
private school would probably be much less than
those involved in present government institutions,
since private schools have an incentive to keep a
sharp eye on waste and inefficiency; their
educational record would also make them attractive
to parents. It is quite possible that the voucher would
5
enable millions of parents to leave the government
system and take advantage of the wide choice of
private schools available. This in turn would
encourage more private schools to open, perhaps
specializing in subjects not offered by the
government institutions, or perhaps of smaller size,
more convenient location or different educational
philosophy.
It would be a government function to ensure that the
private schools maintain minimum educational
standards, and perhaps that a core of certain
subjects were taught. Apart from that, parental
choice would encourage the better schools and would
tend to drive out the less successful ones. Parental
choice would be restored in education: it is likely that
the most successful schools would give parents a
large measure of control over the selection and
retention of teachers and other important aspects of
the operation of the schools.
For higher education, there is still a case for
government subsidy because of the general benefits
which spill over to the whole community from
advanced teaching and research, but Friedman
suggests that there too a voucher system would
ensure funds went to the institutions that were
genuinely deserving of such support. For vocational
training, where the benefit is almost entirely
concentrated on the student rather than the
community, Friedman finds no case for subsidy.
However, if we wish to make it easier for people to
take up vocational training and other higher
education, this might be achieved through a loan
system: investing institutions could perhaps offer
loans to students and take repayments as a set
percentage of the student's final earnings. Once
again, by putting the purchasing power into the
hands of the students or parents themselves instead
of relying on government officials to direct the
provision of education from central funds, this
system would ensure that the best institutions
prospered while less successful ones, unable to
attract students, were driven out. There would also
be a constant pressure to strive for excellence and
efficiency which is not present today because of the
domination of education by the government.
Author: Eamonn Butler, 'Milton Friedman - A
guide to his economic thought’
Reports on Performance Help
Schools Improve
By Peter Cowley
Canada's Fraser Institute introduced its first report
card on school performance in the province of British
Columbia in 1998. The purpose - to give parents and
educators objective information about the
effectiveness of individual public and private schools.
Currently, the Institute publishes ten annual report
cards rating over 7,500 schools located in four
Canadian provinces and one American state. The
report cards are all based on objective, comparable,
annual-generated school performance data provided
by provincial or state education authorities.
From these data we build annual, by-school
indicators of academic performance such as average
exam marks, failure rates, grade-to-grade transition
rates, and graduation rates. Wherever possible, we
provide five years of results. Using statistically valid
procedures, we combine these indicators into an
annual overall rating out of 10 for each school. The
schools are ranked on overall rating. Significant
change over time in any of the indicators or the
overall rating is also indicated in each school's
detailed table of results.
For parents, the report cards offer objective,
comparable measurements on which to make a more
informed decision when they choose a school for their
children. Perhaps more importantly, the report cards
offer parents an annual report on the school's
academic performance. Parents often use the report
card as the basis for discussion with the principal
about how the school might do a better job.
For teachers and school administrators, the report
cards offer valuable comparisons of school
performance. They can compare their school's
current results with those of previous years; and they
can compare its performance with that of nearby
schools and with the provincial average results.
It is this power to compare that makes the report
cards so useful. Planning for school improvement
begins with the definition of relevant, measurable,
and achievable objectives. School comparisons can
help define those objectives.
To be effective, the report cards must be widely
available and easily understood. To ensure that
everyone is aware of them, the Fraser Institute has
partnered with major daily newspapers to provide
multi-page presentations of the report card's results.
In addition, the Institute continually encourages wide
media interest in the report cards. In the four
Canadian provinces, in 2009 alone, the report cards
generated 1,500 stories in newspapers and on radio,
television, and the web.
On the Institute's new interactive website
(www.compareschoolrankings.org), visitors can
locate schools, view individual school results, and
compare schools using a variety of criteria. The
results are presented as easy-to-read charts that can
either be printed directly or be exported in a number
6
of formats.
The report cards are very popular with parents and
are also widely consulted by teachers and school
administrators.
The evidence suggests that annual, independent
reports on school performance such as the Fraser
Institute's report cards encourage system-wide
improvement in schools.
Is it time for report cards on Zambia's schools?
Author: Peter Cowley is Director, School
Performance Studies, The Fraser Institute,
Vancouver, Canada
Pre-School and Nursery Education
By Barbara Collinson
The Jesuits say “Give us a child until he is 7 yrs old
and he is ours for life”. They understand how
fundamental is the period from birth to 7 years old in
any child's formation. The mind is then at its most
malleable, its most curious, its most receptive, its
most open to learning.
Which is why enlightened parents provide physical
and “educational” stimuli as soon as the child is
brought home from the hospital. It is talked to; it is
played with; its senses are stimulated constantly.
By 2 years old the child is being registered in a crèche
where it meets more social and physical stimuli.
Then, if funds permit, follows Pre-school/Nursery
class. This is the first time that there is a degree,
however light, of discipline and time management.
The emphasis on “teaching” at this age is replaced by
a total awareness on the part of the teaching staff
that the priority is “learning” by the child, as opposed
to “teaching” by a teacher. The teacher is really an
empathetic facilitator who can manipulate the
classroom environment so that the child is:
- learning by doing, learning by discovery,
- learning by manipulating objects - experiencing
tactile learning,
- learning through the five senses. Experiencing and
understanding concepts - of time, space, numbers
and the world we live in.
The child is introduced to and encouraged to develop:
Hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, word and
object recognition, a sense of colour, appreciation of
rhyme.
All the child's senses are engaged and developed by
an imaginative facilitator.
Few parents realize that their own attitudes and
constraints are being communicated in the home -
without words or explanation - to their child at this
early age. This can inhibit the development of the
child's potential intelligence and abilities.
The classroom is therefore the better learning
ground, especially with a wealth of educational
materials, toys, story books and imaginative play.
Rote learning is considered outdated. And at this age
it is. However, with hindsight, many educationalists
have regretted the loss of learning by rote in primary
classes. Boring but very useful information like
arithmetic tables can be chanted, even sung, to
make it “fun” and help it stick in the mind - with
considerable benefit to basic numeracy.
There has been much research on the need to
experience early, cognitive learning in one's native
tongue. Unfortunately that may mean learning in an
indigenous language not spoken in the child's home,
because there are so many languages being spoken
in the society. Zambians, like most Africans and
children of all multi-lingual societies, are born
linguists. They have an innate facility to learn
languages. At Pre-school level it's as if they absorb
them in a linguistic bath. English is just another
component of that bath. Because it is the official
language and its use is in every poster, every
newspaper, every sign the child encounters, it is not
to be feared. It should be used as material for
learning in this “bath”.
Parents who deliberately choose to speak to their
children in English as well as their native tongue do
so knowing that their child has the opportunity to be
bilingual/multilingual from a very young age, and
that is valuable. Children mimic first, absorb second,
understand third - with experience. It's a dynamic
learning environment which will pay dividends in the
competitive world around us.
So long as learning is enjoyable and there are
understandable and achievable benchmarks of
success - however small and at any age - education
will be successful.
At Pre-school, children learn to co-operate, to share,
to collaborate on simple projects like building with
blocks making models, drawing, painting, making
simple collages. Arts and crafts provide an
environment for self- expression and for creativity.
They are absolutely vital in the curriculum. So too
are “visits” outside the classroom to experience and
collect real plants, flowers, leaves, stones, etc. to
compare with the pictures or models in the classroom,
helping children to adjust smoothly to the real world
as they grow older.
IT skills can be introduced and learned quickly in pre-
school if funds are available for the hardware and
educational software, which is generally fun, visual,
experimental and experiential. It can give immediate
7
feedback, leading to a sense of achievement which in
turn develops confidence and encourages a desire for
more learning success. IT skills are the way of the
future. Without them a child will be unable to succeed
in tomorrow's world.
We know that money is hard to come by, and there
are many parents who will say that they cannot
afford to send children to Pre-school education.
But the Jesuits were right in their vision of education.
To be most effective it must start with the youngest
minds. Learning, guided by professional teachers,
needs to begin in Pre-school, if not earlier. To omit
this vital stage is to risk failure to enable a child to
attain its full potential. Pre-school is a vital
investment in your child, your family, your
community and our nation
Author: Barbar Collinson is a retired teacher
Quotations of the month
Education is that which remains when one has
forgotten everything learned at school.
Albert Einstein
A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than
a well-educated family.
Thomas Scott
Young People Need Choice
in Education
By Eustace Davie
While young people wrestle with their matriculation
examinations, adults remember their own
experiences. Grandparents, and even great
grandparents, have had that same experience
despite the years that separate them. The subject
content might be different but the fundamental
methods are virtually the same. How is that when the
world around us has changed so dramatically over
the last 100 years?
On 1 October 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model
T Ford, selling at $825, to the American market.
Using improved technology and mass production
techniques he steadily reduced the price. By 1916
the basic touring car cost $360. He sold 472,000 cars
that year. How did he achieve this objective of
making motoring accessible to ordinary people? By
refusing to add costly extras. One of his slogans was,
“You can have any colour you like as long as it's
black.” Only when the increased variety of features
and colours offered by his competitors started
seriously to erode the sales of Ford cars did Henry
Ford give in to making changes.
Schooling worldwide is stuck in the Henry Ford Model
T mass production mode. Critics use the term
“sausage-machine” to describe schooling. The
reason is the lack of choice; the same lack of choice
that Henry Ford gave the buyers of his cars.
Young people are the captives of technocrats.
Parents wield very little influence over what their
children are taught or how the success or failure of
the process is measured. The most they can do is
enrol their children in schools where they receive
kind and impartial treatment and where teachers
attempt to teach students something of value.
Children are not vehicles for the uniformity that
initially proved successful in the manufacture of cars.
Each child is unique and not there to be turned into a
standard individual. A system should be in place that
allows each young person to develop their full
potential.
Some youngsters cannot memorise information,
concentrate on words, do arithmetic, or endure
examinations. However, they might be above
average at sport, or music, carpentry, cooking, or
anything mechanical, and a hundred and one other
things not in the matriculation syllabus. The skills
they are capable of most probably are in great
demand out in the wider world, but not in the narrow
confines of the classroom.
Students are forced to fit the school. Rather it is the
school that should be forced to fit the students.
Between 1880 and 1920, the last bastions of
demand-driven schooling, the UK and the US, fell
before the onslaught of government legislation.
Legislation which introduced the new “model” of the
manner in which children should be educated to
ensure that all young people received a sound
education. A hundred and more years later, this
“model” has been the subject of numerous
commissions of inquiry, investigations and studies.
Every one bound to fail because their point of
departure remains fixed; no tampering with
government domination of the process.
Everywhere, are educationists appointed to discover
the reasons for failure. What educationist in their
right mind would admit that the solution to failed
education is to set young minds free to choose for
themselves, with the guidance of their parents, what,
how and when to learn?
Alternatives to the current schooling system do not
exist because they have not been allowed to come
into existence. Young people cannot walk out of a
school tomorrow and immediately find an alternative
to accommodate them. Once a demand is identified,
learning establishments to cater for young people
wishing to specialise in mathematics, soccer, science,
golf, music, cricket, computer technology, cooking,
investing, acting, engineering, medicine, design,
massage and myriad other skills would emerge to
provide whatever training is required.
What about the syllabus? A compulsory syllabus is a
mechanism that prevents young people from
learning voluntarily what interests them most and
8
what they are individually best suited to learn. Young
children voluntarily devote hours of their time to
intensely acquiring knowledge and skills when not
compelled to do so. That young people prefer to do
nothing constructive if not driven is false. What is
true is that they rebel when they are driven to do
what they do not regard to be in their self-interest.
By combining students who are learning information
or skills in which they are intensely interested, with
teachers or instructors who are competing with
others for the business of the young, you have a
recipe for success. On the other hand, by compelling
young people to study subjects in which they have no
interest, taught by teachers who act as captors from
whom there is no escape, you have a recipe for
educational disaster.
Demand-driven education can be easily instituted.
That taxpayers pay for the schooling of children
whose parents are unable to pay school fees does not
mean that government has to run schools. Taxpayers
can just as easily pay for tuition provided by
competing private learning establishments.
The first and most difficult task before us is to
persuade politicians and educationists to release all
captive children so that they can purchase, with the
assistance of taxpayers if necessary, and the advice
of their parents, the skills and knowledge that best
suit their individual talents and capabilities. The
second task is to remove legislation that prevents
competing entrepreneurs from creating the learning
environment and facilities that will satisfy the
demand of eager young customers.
The case for change is compelling. Inappropriate
learning environments are blighting the lives of
millions of young people worldwide. Compulsion, and
all the vested interests it has spawned, has got to
make way for voluntary learning.
Author: Eustace Davie is a director of the Free
Market foundation
Next Step on Charters
What's new on customer service charters? Is there
any progress, or must we agree with those who say
we are crying for the moon?
Well, things do look disappointing. In 2008 the ZRA,
the Ministry of Lands and the immigration
Department all launched charters, and two years
later there is little to show for it. So must we abandon
the idea?
Not so soon. The ZRA has made a real effort to
perform on time, with considerable success. But they
need to blow their own trumpet and publicise the
results. And there is still plenty of room for
improvement.
As for Lands and Immigration, they look like failures.
But Cabinet Office remains very keen on the charter let's give it a go. We all have a lot to gain from
idea, and has just taken a new initiative. They have success
asked ZIPPA to recruit a consultant to find out how
The Cabinet Office and ZIPPA can play their parts.
other African countries have succeeded, and advise
But results will depend heavily on members of the
on how Zambia can follow their example. The 6
general public, who must protest if they receive poor
month consultancy will start soon, and it will involve
service. ZIPPA's help line is open. Try us on
understudies to take over the baton. There will also
zippamail@gmail.com.
be another workshop to chart the way forward. So

Disclaimer
The views expressed in this journal are those of the authors. They are not necessarily shared by members or by
ZIPPA, which has no official view.

Membership
April brings the opportunity for members to renew subscriptions and for non-yet-members to join ZIPPA if you
would like to support our work of stimulating positive ideas and practices. Publishing this journal and promoting
customer service charters cost money, and we have no government or institutional funding. Subscriptions have
been static since ZIPPA started in 2004, so the present increases are unavoidable. Don't regard membership as
an obligation: welcome it as an opportunity to contribute to a better Zambia.

ZAMBIA INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS

The Executive Secretary, PO Box 20516, Kitwe, zippamail@gmail.com

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION / RENEWAL

I/We wish to subscribe as a member for the year of April 2009/March 2010

Category (tick where applicable) Subscription

Student K30,000
Individual K200,000
Institution K600,000
Company K1,000,000

Details of Applicant

Name: ............................................................ Postal Address: ....................................

...................................................................... ..........................................................

E-mail: .......................................................... Phone No: ............................................

Signed: .......................................................... Date: ...................................................