With Prof Nyanga
There are several stakeholders who are providing education world over and they include, schools run by the government, Non-governmental Organisations, jointly owned education centre, for profit making organisations and community institutions.
Government institutions are purely run by the state. Educators in these schools receive their salaries from government and are funded through taxes.
The funding of day to day expenses for running these institutions is also done by government, including the purchase of teaching materials, aids and anything that the school might need.
The government managed institutions tend to be more affordable as their running does not directly depend on the income from individuals, but instead from pool of resources from government such as tax paid by the citizens to government.
It is for this reason that many countries, Zambia in particular champion free education especially at pre-primary and primary level, while charging little amount at secondary level even up to tertiary level.
This is in support of education rights for every person. There are some countries that offer free education through out someone’s education life to its citizens though they are few.
In Zambia, Government education centres were most running from first stage, primary to tertiary education (university and college).
It is until recently that the government realised the importance of pre-education and that’s how they started training teachers and early childhood teachers who are specialised in teaching from nursery to lower primary level.
This has proven to be ideal as some of primary schools now include pre-schools.
Meanwhile, Non-Governmental Organizational (NGO) educational institutions are typically run by well wishers who do not want to accumulate any profit from those they provide the service for especially the learners.
NGOs may also include civil society organisations, such institutions are common in war tone places or countries and/ or in poverty-stricken communities.
NGOs maybe internationally or locally based and these kind of institutions have been around as old as government owned institutions.
These are normally there to cushion the deficit of government institutions due to wars or hard to reach areas. NGO run educational institutions are normally at Pre-school going up to primary education though there are some few that go up to tertiary education.
In Zambia, many NGOs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) such as Zambia Open Community Schools (ZOCS) only support certain areas of education in supplementing to what governments is already doing. Some NGOs support girl child while others support the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs).
Private or For Profit Making Organisations include individuals and companies that invest in educational institutions for the purpose of making profits. These institutions are solely owned and managed by the individuals or groups of investors who put in money to provide the community with education.
Their institutions compete with government schools in providing quality education which most parents and guardians wish to give to their children. They pay teachers/ lecturers/ instructors out of the same investment. Like any educational institution, they are regulated by the government to ensure that they don’t deviate from the main objective of education.
Private education systems were not common until late Nineties and early twenties in Zambia. Currently, there are so many private institutions which help provide education to the general public.
Missionary or church based educational institutions are those institutions that mostly run by church organisations such as; Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Presbyterian, Baptist Church, New Apostolic church United Church of Zambia (Zambia) and many others. Like NGO institutions, these churches are mostly not for profit making but for community service.
All the funding is from the same organisations. Mostly missionary education institutions are considered expensive and of high quality in terms of morals and standards. In Zambia, mission education centres are as old as before independence and they have greatly contributed to helping the government in the sector.
Missionary education institutions run from re-school to tertiary education and fully funded by the churches and mostly constructed by missionaries.
Community educational institutions are those institutions that are run and managed by the community members. Normally these institutions are for early grades as community members might deem it fit to have a school because of either the government institution is far for the young ones or there are natural barriers such as rivers and mountains.
The community members build their own infrastructure and employ their own teachers, normally, the local people who may sometimes not have been trained or trained as teachers but have not been employed by government, otherwise they are paid very little amount of money or volunteering.
The quality of education is comprised as there is little or no motivation for teachers among many factors.
Joint venture run education management system is where the above providers decide to work together in providing education to the community. There are different agreements that take place according to the parties involved and these are common in Zambia.
In the next article, I will be covering the topic on the private vs. public tertiary institutions, which of the two is recommended and why?
Prof Edgar Nyanga can be contacted on … [email protected]