Zambia’s Inherited Education: Why We Need a New Educational Imagination
By Dr Tarcisius Mukuka
Introduction: The Question We Avoid
Every nation eventually reaches a moment when it must ask, not only how many children are in school, but what kind of human beings its schools are producing. Zambia has made undeniable progress in expanding access to education since independence. More children attend school today than ever before, and opportunities for secondary and tertiary education have grown remarkably. Yet beneath these achievements lies a deeper philosophical question that we rarely confront: What philosophy of education have we inherited, and is it still adequate for the Zambia we are trying to build?
Educational systems do not emerge by accident. Every curriculum, examination, classroom practice, and policy rest upon assumptions about the purpose of education and the kind of person society hopes to form. In Zambia, these assumptions continue to bear the imprint of our colonial past. We have largely inherited a colonial, examination-oriented system that values certification, conformity, and economic usefulness, while still struggling to nurture a more holistic vision of human development.
Colonial Education: Successful on Its Own Terms
To argue for a new philosophy of education is not to dismiss colonial education as a complete failure. On the contrary, judged according to its own objectives, it was remarkably successful. Mission schools and colonial institutions expanded literacy, established teacher-training colleges such as Chalimbana Teacher Training College, Mbereshi Teacher Training Institution) ― associated with the United Church of Central Africa in Rhodesia (UCCAR) and located in Luapula Province and Lubwa Mission Teacher Training Centre ― associated with the United Free Church of Scotland, where many future nationalist leaders, including Kenneth Kaunda, received part of their education. These and other institutions produced many of the teachers, nurses, clergy, civil servants, lawyers, and professionals who later contributed significantly to Zambia’s development. The transformation from roughly one hundred university graduates at independence to about half a million graduates today is extraordinary and deserves recognition and gratitude. Many early national leaders emerged from this small but influential educated elite. Mainza Chona, Nalumino Mundia, Elijah Mudenda, and Robinson Nabulyato all benefited from educational opportunities that were exceptionally rare for Africans under colonial rule. Their achievements remind us that education, even in its limited colonial form, became a powerful instrument of social mobility and national leadership.
Nkumbula, Kaunda, and the Meaning of Education
Two figures illustrate this history particularly well. Harry Mwanga Nkumbula, educated at Adams College in South Africa and later exposed to further studies in Britain, belonged to the first cohort of comparatively highly educated Northern Rhodesian nationalists. He helped lay the intellectual and political foundations of Zambian independence, and historian Giacomo Macola has aptly described him as “the father of Zambian politics.” Yet his contribution has often been overshadowed by the larger public legacy of Kenneth Kaunda.
Kaunda himself presents an even more intriguing case. He was not a university graduate. Educated at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali and later trained as a teacher at Munali Training Centre, he worked as a schoolteacher and boarding master before entering nationalist politics. Much of his intellectual formation came through extensive reading, political engagement, disciplined reflection, and practical leadership experience rather than through formal university education.
His life exposes a truth that modern societies often forget: education cannot be reduced to academic credentials. Degrees certify competence, but they do not automatically produce wisdom, integrity, courage, or a commitment to the common good. Kaunda’s example demonstrates that nations are shaped not only by those who possess impressive qualifications, but also by those who cultivate vision, character, and a lifelong openness to learning.
The Hidden Telos of Our Schools
The deeper issue is not whether colonial and post-colonial education have produced successful graduates. The more important question is what they were designed to achieve. Colonial education primarily served the administrative needs of the colonial state. Schools prepared clerks, interpreters, teachers, artisans, and civil servants capable of maintaining an orderly system of governance. Their ultimate purpose was administrative efficiency, social stability, and economic usefulness, not the formation of autonomous democratic citizens.
I describe this inherited paradigm as the Homo Administrativus model — an educational philosophy designed to produce literate, disciplined, obedient administrators capable of operating the machinery of government. In such a system, knowledge is transmitted from teacher to learner, success depends upon accurate recall and conformity to prescribed procedures, and examinations become the supreme measure of achievement. This is remarkably similar to what Paulo Freire called the “banking concept” of education, where information is deposited into learners rather than constructed through dialogue, reflection, and critical engagement.
Independence Without Epistemological Independence
After independence, Zambia quite rightly sought to democratise education through expanded access, free basic education, national development policies, and more recently competency-based curricula. These reforms were necessary and progressive. Yet political independence does not automatically produce epistemological independence. Institutions often retain the assumptions upon which they were originally built.
Consequently, although subjects changed and curricula evolved, the underlying philosophy remained strikingly familiar. Education continued to be measured primarily through qualifications, examination performance, employability, and economic productivity. There is nothing inherently wrong with these goals. Every society needs competent professionals, skilled workers, and technically capable leaders. The problem arises when they become the ultimate purpose of education rather than important means toward a richer human end.
It is also worth remembering that the ideal of publicly accessible and tuition-free basic education did not originate with recent political administrations, despite contemporary campaign rhetoric sometimes suggesting otherwise. The foundational commitment to expanding educational access was articulated and pursued by Zambia’s founding mothers and fathers, who understood education as an instrument of liberation, equality, and human development, not as the achievement of any single later government.
The Question We Are Not Asking
At this point we encounter the central limitation of our inherited educational paradigm. It asks, “What should learners know?” and increasingly, “What should learners be able to do?” These are legitimate questions, but they are not the deepest ones. They leave largely unanswered a more fundamental question: “What kind of persons are learners becoming?”
The distinction is profound. A graduate may possess outstanding technical expertise while lacking integrity. A brilliant accountant may facilitate fraud. A highly educated lawyer may manipulate justice. A gifted scientist may contribute to environmental destruction. A skilled communicator may use language to deceive rather than to enlighten. These examples remind us that knowledge and competency are morally neutral until guided by wisdom, responsibility, and character.
This is why Zambia sometimes produces what might be called immature professionals — individuals whose intellectual capacities have been developed while their ethical judgement, emotional resilience, civic responsibility, ecological stewardship, financial wisdom, and spiritual depth have been left largely to chance. Many of our national crises — corruption, political intolerance, family breakdown, cybercrime, substance abuse, environmental degradation, and declining social trust — are not primarily problems of insufficient knowledge. They are problems of insufficient human formation.
From Homo Administrativus to Homo Maturus
The educational challenge confronting Zambia is therefore anthropological. It concerns our understanding of what it means to be human. If we view learners primarily as future employees, economic actors, or instruments of national productivity, our schools will inevitably organise themselves around examinations, qualifications, and labour-market preparation. But if we begin with the conviction that every learner possesses intrinsic dignity and is called to become a wise, responsible, compassionate, and integrated human being, then the entire philosophy of education changes.
Curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, teacher education, and educational policy should be oriented toward the formation of Homo Maturus — the mature human person. Such an education would still value literacy, numeracy, science, technology, and professional competence. But it would also intentionally cultivate character, empathy, civic virtue, ecological responsibility, financial stewardship, relational maturity, and spiritual depth.
Conclusion: Zambia’s Educational Areopagus
Zambia stands, I believe, at an Educational Areopagus Moment. The challenge is not to reject the achievements of colonial education or the advances of competency-based learning. Knowledge remains indispensable. Competence remains essential. Employability remains important. The challenge is to relocate these goods within a richer understanding of the human person and the true purpose of education.
The transition we need is not from colonial education to anti-colonial education, but from an educational philosophy centred primarily on administration, qualification, and productivity to one centred on human dignity, human formation, and human flourishing. The decisive question for Zambia’s future is therefore not merely what our learners know, but who they are becoming.
If our schools can help produce citizens who combine competence with integrity, intelligence with empathy and compassion, and technical skill with wisdom, then education will cease to be merely a pathway to employment and become what it was always meant to be: the formation of mature persons capable of building a just, humane, and flourishing Zambia.
About the Author
Dr Tarcisius Mukuka is a Zambian scholar, educator, and former Catholic priest with academic training in Biblical Studies, Greek, and Hebrew. He has taught in Zambia and abroad and writes extensively on education, human development, ethics, spirituality, and social transformation. He is the author of Becoming Whole: Integrating Our Fragments of Human and Spiritual Maturity, a forthcoming work exploring holistic approaches to human flourishing and the formation of mature persons in contemporary African society.
Zambia’s Inherited Education: Why We Need a New Educational Imagination
Introduction: The Question We Avoid
Every nation eventually reaches a moment when it must ask, not only how many children are in school, but what kind of human beings its schools are producing. Zambia has made undeniable progress in expanding access to education since independence. More children attend school today than ever before, and opportunities for secondary and tertiary education have grown remarkably. Yet beneath these achievements lies a deeper philosophical question that we rarely confront: What philosophy of education have we inherited, and is it still adequate for the Zambia we are trying to build?
Educational systems do not emerge by accident. Every curriculum, examination, classroom practice, and policy rest upon assumptions about the purpose of education and the kind of person society hopes to form. In Zambia, these assumptions continue to bear the imprint of our colonial past. We have largely inherited a colonial, examination-oriented system that values certification, conformity, and economic usefulness, while still struggling to nurture a more holistic vision of human development.
Colonial Education: Successful on Its Own Terms
To argue for a new philosophy of education is not to dismiss colonial education as a complete failure. On the contrary, judged according to its own objectives, it was remarkably successful. Mission schools and colonial institutions expanded literacy, established teacher-training colleges such as Chalimbana Teacher Training College, Mbereshi Teacher Training Institution) ― associated with the United Church of Central Africa in Rhodesia (UCCAR) and located in Luapula Province and Lubwa Mission Teacher Training Centre ― associated with the United Free Church of Scotland, where many future nationalist leaders, including Kenneth Kaunda, received part of their education. These and other institutions produced many of the teachers, nurses, clergy, civil servants, lawyers, and professionals who later contributed significantly to Zambia’s development. The transformation from roughly one hundred university graduates at independence to about half a million graduates today is extraordinary and deserves recognition and gratitude. Many early national leaders emerged from this small but influential educated elite. Mainza Chona, Nalumino Mundia, Elijah Mudenda, and Robinson Nabulyato all benefited from educational opportunities that were exceptionally rare for Africans under colonial rule. Their achievements remind us that education, even in its limited colonial form, became a powerful instrument of social mobility and national leadership.
Nkumbula, Kaunda, and the Meaning of Education
Two figures illustrate this history particularly well. Harry Mwanga Nkumbula, educated at Adams College in South Africa and later exposed to further studies in Britain, belonged to the first cohort of comparatively highly educated Northern Rhodesian nationalists. He helped lay the intellectual and political foundations of Zambian independence, and historian Giacomo Macola has aptly described him as “the father of Zambian politics.” Yet his contribution has often been overshadowed by the larger public legacy of Kenneth Kaunda.
Kaunda himself presents an even more intriguing case. He was not a university graduate. Educated at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali and later trained as a teacher at Munali Training Centre, he worked as a schoolteacher and boarding master before entering nationalist politics. Much of his intellectual formation came through extensive reading, political engagement, disciplined reflection, and practical leadership experience rather than through formal university education.
His life exposes a truth that modern societies often forget: education cannot be reduced to academic credentials. Degrees certify competence, but they do not automatically produce wisdom, integrity, courage, or a commitment to the common good. Kaunda’s example demonstrates that nations are shaped not only by those who possess impressive qualifications, but also by those who cultivate vision, character, and a lifelong openness to learning.
The Hidden Telos of Our Schools
The deeper issue is not whether colonial and post-colonial education have produced successful graduates. The more important question is what they were designed to achieve. Colonial education primarily served the administrative needs of the colonial state. Schools prepared clerks, interpreters, teachers, artisans, and civil servants capable of maintaining an orderly system of governance. Their ultimate purpose was administrative efficiency, social stability, and economic usefulness, not the formation of autonomous democratic citizens.
I describe this inherited paradigm as the Homo Administrativus model — an educational philosophy designed to produce literate, disciplined, obedient administrators capable of operating the machinery of government. In such a system, knowledge is transmitted from teacher to learner, success depends upon accurate recall and conformity to prescribed procedures, and examinations become the supreme measure of achievement. This is remarkably similar to what Paulo Freire called the “banking concept” of education, where information is deposited into learners rather than constructed through dialogue, reflection, and critical engagement.
Independence Without Epistemological Independence
After independence, Zambia quite rightly sought to democratise education through expanded access, free basic education, national development policies, and more recently competency-based curricula. These reforms were necessary and progressive. Yet political independence does not automatically produce epistemological independence. Institutions often retain the assumptions upon which they were originally built.
Consequently, although subjects changed and curricula evolved, the underlying philosophy remained strikingly familiar. Education continued to be measured primarily through qualifications, examination performance, employability, and economic productivity. There is nothing inherently wrong with these goals. Every society needs competent professionals, skilled workers, and technically capable leaders. The problem arises when they become the ultimate purpose of education rather than important means toward a richer human end.
It is also worth remembering that the ideal of publicly accessible and tuition-free basic education did not originate with recent political administrations, despite contemporary campaign rhetoric sometimes suggesting otherwise. The foundational commitment to expanding educational access was articulated and pursued by Zambia’s founding mothers and fathers, who understood education as an instrument of liberation, equality, and human development, not as the achievement of any single later government.
The Question We Are Not Asking
At this point we encounter the central limitation of our inherited educational paradigm. It asks, “What should learners know?” and increasingly, “What should learners be able to do?” These are legitimate questions, but they are not the deepest ones. They leave largely unanswered a more fundamental question: “What kind of persons are learners becoming?”
The distinction is profound. A graduate may possess outstanding technical expertise while lacking integrity. A brilliant accountant may facilitate fraud. A highly educated lawyer may manipulate justice. A gifted scientist may contribute to environmental destruction. A skilled communicator may use language to deceive rather than to enlighten. These examples remind us that knowledge and competency are morally neutral until guided by wisdom, responsibility, and character.
This is why Zambia sometimes produces what might be called immature professionals — individuals whose intellectual capacities have been developed while their ethical judgement, emotional resilience, civic responsibility, ecological stewardship, financial wisdom, and spiritual depth have been left largely to chance. Many of our national crises — corruption, political intolerance, family breakdown, cybercrime, substance abuse, environmental degradation, and declining social trust — are not primarily problems of insufficient knowledge. They are problems of insufficient human formation.
From Homo Administrativus to Homo Maturus
The educational challenge confronting Zambia is therefore anthropological. It concerns our understanding of what it means to be human. If we view learners primarily as future employees, economic actors, or instruments of national productivity, our schools will inevitably organise themselves around examinations, qualifications, and labour-market preparation. But if we begin with the conviction that every learner possesses intrinsic dignity and is called to become a wise, responsible, compassionate, and integrated human being, then the entire philosophy of education changes.
Curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, teacher education, and educational policy should be oriented toward the formation of Homo Maturus — the mature human person. Such an education would still value literacy, numeracy, science, technology, and professional competence. But it would also intentionally cultivate character, empathy, civic virtue, ecological responsibility, financial stewardship, relational maturity, and spiritual depth.
Conclusion: Zambia’s Educational Areopagus
Zambia stands, I believe, at an Educational Areopagus Moment. The challenge is not to reject the achievements of colonial education or the advances of competency-based learning. Knowledge remains indispensable. Competence remains essential. Employability remains important. The challenge is to relocate these goods within a richer understanding of the human person and the true purpose of education.
The transition we need is not from colonial education to anti-colonial education, but from an educational philosophy centred primarily on administration, qualification, and productivity to one centred on human dignity, human formation, and human flourishing. The decisive question for Zambia’s future is therefore not merely what our learners know, but who they are becoming.
If our schools can help produce citizens who combine competence with integrity, intelligence with empathy and compassion, and technical skill with wisdom, then education will cease to be merely a pathway to employment and become what it was always meant to be: the formation of mature persons capable of building a just, humane, and flourishing Zambia.
About the Author
Dr Tarcisius Mukuka is a Zambian scholar, educator, and former Catholic priest with academic training in Biblical Studies, Greek, and Hebrew. He has taught in Zambia and abroad and writes extensively on education, human development, ethics, spirituality, and social transformation. He is the author of Becoming Whole: Integrating Our Fragments of Human and Spiritual Maturity, a forthcoming work exploring holistic approaches to human flourishing and the formation of mature persons in contemporary African society.
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