After the New Dawn Administration came into power following the 2021 national election, Zambia’s new president, Hakainde Hichilema, announced the abolishment of school fees at all Zambian public schools. Previously, secondary school fees ranged from a couple hundred kwacha per term to several thousand per term, making advanced schooling out of financial reach for the majority of families in the communities we serve. The end of school fees was a major advancement for universal access to education in the county.

In the same time period, Impact Network staff had been planning and organizing a scholarship program to help pay tuition fees for some of our grade 7 pupils. However, at the end of 2021 we found ourselves with funds specifically earmarked to pay for grade 8 schools fees and no more grade 8 school fees due to schools. We were left to wonder, what should we do with these funds?

In early 2022, we pivoted to a project in which we offered “school support kits” to every Impact Network alumnus who had enrolled in a grade 8 class. While fees had been abolished, requirements to have specific uniforms, supplies and materials in order to enroll in secondary school remained in place and the cost of these items was still be prohibitive for many families. The school support kits consisted of a good quality school bag stuffed with the notebooks, pens, pencils, mathematical sets, and calculators universally required at Zambian secondary schools. Our hope was these kits would ease the financial burden on families and remove some of the remaining obstacles to school enrollment.

Many eligible alums came back to their Impact Network primary school to show us their confirmation of enrollment in grade 8 and receive the school support kit. While UNICEF estimates that only a third of eligible students transition to secondary school after finishing grade 7, we were very pleased to learn that over 80 percent of our 2021 alumni are currently attending secondary schools! We also learned that 1 out of 3 alums who participated in this project had reported two or more weeks late for secondary school due to lack of funds to purchase supplies and materials. Clearly the school support kits meet an unanswered need within our communities.

This project also gave us an opportunity to survey families of alumni and get written consent to follow up with our former pupils at their secondary school, which creates future opportunities for us to check on alumni and track their progress after their time at Impact Network. We are excited to see what lies ahead for the Impact Network class of 2021!

-Annabelle

Spotlight on secondary school!