The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) has insisted that government has to show commitment to their policies and plans by allocating no less than 20% of the Budget to Education and Skills Sector.

ZANEC Acting Executive Director Ivy Mutwale argues that even though it can be argued that the allocations have stayed within the bracket of international frameworks that government allocate between 4 to 6% of their Gross Domestic Product or between 15 to 20 % of their national budgets to Education, the reality on the ground is that Education and Skills Sector needs a lot of attention.

Ms Mutwale is also expecting that this increase in allocation should seek to balance the allocations to Personnel Emoluments and Service provision.

She says while the coalition appreciates the fact that eighty five percent of the 2018 budget went to meeting the obligations to the human resource, ZANEC also wants to see the allocation to service delivery increased so that the learner must benefit by receiving all requirements that result in good learner outcomes.

She adds that ZANEC is still concerned with the declining financing to the Education and Skills Sectors to the Ministry of General Education and Ministry of Higher Education.

\“The national budget allocation to the Education and Skills Sector falls below the Cairo Protocol on Education of at least 20% minimum allocation to which Zambia is assented to. Unfortunately, the budget allocation has continued to go down from 2015 as follows; 2015 (20.2%), 2016 (17.2%), 2017 (16.5%) and 2018 (16.1%). ZANEC is concerned with this nose-diving trend due to the fact that the inadequate funding has diversely affected the delivery of quality education services at all levels. We are concerned that the despite the minimal allocation of funds were disbursed late and in small amounts that would not translate to any meaningful improvement in the sector,” she said.

She cites Eastern Province, as learnt during a ZANEC Education Platform that the Province was allocated K12, 949,214.82 in the 2018 National Budget and that a quarterly disbursement of K3, 237,303.71 was indicatively supposed to be released to the Eastern Province under the Ministry of General Education.

“However, only K519, 313.81 translating into sixteen percent (16%) of the first quarter allocation was released to the Provincial and District Education Offices. Meanwhile no disbursements were made to Early Childhood Education (ECE), primary, secondary and colleges as of April 2018, for the entire province. This clearly highlights the Ministry of Finance failure to submit funds to the sector for provision of adequate quality services,” she said.

Ms Mutwale says the challenge of financing for public service delivery is not unique to the Education and Skills Sector.