The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) is unhappy that the budgetary allocation to education spending in 2025 has failed to hit 20% of the total planned expenditure and is a reduction on the 2024 allocation.
The government has since 2022 successively increased education sector spending but the allocation for 2025 falls short of the global commitment of spending 15-20% of the annual budget on education.
Reacting to the 2025 national budget, ZANEC Executive Director George Hamusunga noted “with sadness” the reduced allocation of 14.5% of total budget spend from 15.4% in 2024.
In absolute terms, education spending has been increased by K4.14 billion, equivalent to 15.12%. These gains, however, get swallowed when adjusted for inflation, and as a portion of the entire budget, the proposed 2025 education expenditure is a regression on 2024.
Hamusunga stated that spending a minimum of 20% on education will enable the country to adequately invest in improving education for all. “It is important as we have stated before that 20% of the total budget should be allocated to the education sector in line with the SADC and Cairo Protocols on Education. This will allow the country to make adequate investments in improving quality education for all. It will also aid in achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.”
He has also urged that the planned recruitment of 2,000 teachers in 2025 should take place in the first quarter of 2025 to avoid negatively impacting the teacher-to-pupil ratio arising from the delayed recruitment and replacement of teachers.
“For instance, the delayed recruitment of the 4,500 teachers planned for in 2024 is not good for the sector,” he stated.
ZANEC has further advised the government to address the bottlenecks leading to the underutilization of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) because while the increase to K36.1 million per constituency is welcome, “continuing to increase the CDF without addressing the capacity gaps is counterproductive.”
Finance and National Planning Minister Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane last Friday proposed to spend K31.5 billion on education in 2025, out of which K2.3 billion would go to grants for early childhood, primary and secondary education for continued free education.
School feeding has received an exponential increase from K7 million in 2024 to K534.4 million “to keep learners in school and improve learning outcomes”, signifying another tilt to social protection in the government’s expenditure plan for the coming year, in recognition of the economic and financial hardships the vast majority of the population is experiencing as a result of the drought in 2024.
Musokotwane has also allocated K2.6 billion to education infrastructure of which K1.6 billion is for the construction of 120 secondary schools while K300.5 million is for the completion of the stalled hostel projects at the Copperbelt University, the University of Zambia, and other public universities.
I propose to spend K150.0 million on the Implementation of the new national education curriculum, “which will promote life-long learning, entrepreneurship, and practical skills required by the industry” will use K150 million of the total education expenditure.
