When serving with the Peace Corps in Zambia my host father, who made a modest living from farming, used a good portion of his income to send all 10 of his kids and nephew to school.  He would tell me, “I don’t want my kids to wake up every day early in the morning to break their backs farming.  If I send them to school, they can go work in the city.”  That statement is not just my host father’s idea, but a fact supported by the world bank.  In their research they found, “the most noticeable fall in inequality occurs when in-kind public service benefits are added” (22).  When the largest amount of funds were put towards education and health, the world bank reports that levels of inequality and poverty were lower.  This blog post will explore the relationship between primary school enrollment and poverty in Zambia my father talked about.

            There are many definitions for poverty, but I believe we can utilize the definition brought up by Ingutia, Rezitis, and Sumelius in their study of childhood poverty in sub-Saharan Africa which describes poverty as a child being, “deprived of interrelated material and sociocultural resources that are economic, political, social, cultural, physical and environmental in nature and are generally known to be vital for development” (2020).  This definition gives a wide range of what poverty can cover.  In Zambia, the World Bank estimated in 2009 that 70 percent of Zambians lived on less than $1 per day so making poverty strictly an economic issue may be misleading.  Now the question is, does increased enrollment in primary school truly decrease poverty rates?  The answer may not be as easy as a yes or no.

However, Ingutia, Rezitis, and Sumelius’s research on the statistics done by the Young Lives Project a research group sponsored by the University of Oxford suggests this is not just a direct link between enrollment and a decrease in inequality. By examining the crop production index, child underweight rates, and the ratio of female to male labor force participation they found that creating a direct link between poverty and primary school enrollment may be a mistake.  The scholars found that “Although education plays a crucial role in the pathway out of poverty, the order of elasticity ranking shows that female employment in agriculture, quality of institutions and child underweight are more potent in explaining child poverty than primary school enrolment” (12, 2020).  This article that while the numbers for primary school enrollment are important, that number is not the only factor when trying to dissect the cause of poverty in Zambia.

Female Employment in Agriculture

There are many causal relationships that work together to prolong poverty in Zambia.  One of these relationships includes female employment in agriculture, “The estimated elasticity shows that a 1% increase in the number of females employed in agriculture will decrease poverty by 2.48%” (13, 2020).  When there are fewer women earning money, unfortunately, families must choose which child gets to attend school.  In this case, boys are usually given privilege over their sisters to attend school.  This makes it harder for women to enter the labor market and this process continues with the next generation.  You can understand from this relationship that when women are not allowed to participate in school, they are then not equipped to participate in a large sphere of the economy.

Quality of Schools

            Looking into Zambia’s past even though in 1983 the primary school enrollment was nearly 100% (Haambote, 2009), Quality education in Zambia was declining due to a myriad of reasons including: “excessively large classes, poorly furnished classrooms, dilapidated buildings, and scarcity of textbooks, science equipment, and other essential items” these items combined led to a fall in teacher morale (Musambachime, 85).  Even if these students are enrolled in the class, there is no guarantee that they are getting a quality education.  During my time teaching, I saw many teachers who held admirative roles while also being teachers due to a lack of faculty and funds.  This led to many classes without teachers, and just some notes for students to copy from the board.  Due to a lack of resources these schools have had a tough time issuing the quality education they want to deliver.  One big factor in employment in Zambia is the use of English.  If students are not getting the proper education they require, entering the workforce and breaking out of poverty will be an uphill battle.  In 2001 it was found that discretionary district-level funding improved English and math test scores by 0.10 SDs (Ganimian and Murname, 2016).  If funds can be made available to schools, then it is possible for more improvement.

Child Underweight

When hungry in class focusing on schoolwork is difficult.  The Young Lives Project described how malnourished children cannot pay attention enough in school to truly get good value from it, this can then spiral into poverty in the kid’s future.  Reversely, kids from impoverished families sometimes do not have access to the nutrition they need leading to poverty causing child underweight. 

            While I saw many students attend class regularly in Zambia, much of the time was with no teacher present.  While the rates of primary school enrollment are high in Zambia, they do not give the full picture of what factors keep people in poverty.  The government can show off these high numbers, but what are the actual outcomes of schooling? These schools and communities sometimes lack the resources to provide children with the means for a good education.  When provided the world bank reports that inequalities have gone down, as seen in figure 8.

*The Gini index shows the measure of inequality amongst a population.

To recap discussed the complexity behind primary school enrollment and its relationship with poverty in Zambia.  This is an extensive topic that cannot be solved with one action, it will take many leaders to put egos aside and figure out what they as a people want to get out of education.  Currently, the new government elected this year led by Hakainde Hichilema plans to expand the social sector and attack these issues.  Then again what politicians preach before being elected and what they do after often differ, only time will tell what the future has in store for Zambia.

Works Cited

Bulfin, Michael. “Zambia’s Education System in Historical Context” Spark Ventures Publication, 2012

de la Fuente, Alejandro and Rosales, Manuel and Jellema, Jon Robbert, The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty in Zambia (November 20, 2017). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8246, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3074909

Ganimian, A. J., & Murnane, R. J. (2016). Improving Education in Developing Countries: Lessons From Rigorous Impact Evaluations. Review of Educational Research, 86(3), 719–755. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315627499

Haambote, Fidelis and Oxenham, John. “Regaining Momentum Towards Universal Primary Education in Zambia.” In Maintaining Universal Primary Education: Lessons from Commonwealth Africa, by Lalage Bown, 51-79. London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 2009.

Ingutia, Rezitis, and Sumelius John. “Povery, status of rural women and education in sub-Saharan Africa” Children and youth Services Revise, Volumne 111, 2020.

Musambachime, Mwelwa. “The Impact of Rapid Population Growth and the Economic Decline on the Quality of Education: The Case of Zambia.” Review of African Political Economy, 1990: 81-92