Zambia’s Underdevelopment Linked To Educational And Cultural Issues – M’membe

The President of the Socialist Party, Fred M’membe has discussed how underdevelopment issues in Zambia are intrinsically linked to educational and cultural issues within the country.

In his reflections on education, M’membe started in outlining that he believes underdevelopment is largely based on the lack of learning and lack of the possibility to learn.

According to UNICEF figures, around 800,000 school-aged children are currently out of school and access to early childhood education is very low, with only 26 per cent of children entering Grade 1 – highlighting M’membe’s concerns.

Speaking on underdevelopment, M’membe said “It is also how many cannot read or write, or pass on to higher levels of education, due to the lack of teachers, schools and the minimum conditions beyond those most elementary for subsistence. That is why our dramatic educational and cultural problems cannot be isolated from our overall socio-economic situation.”

Resulting from this lack of education, comes a lack of literacy, M’membe states.

Such illiteracy is far worse in the rural areas, where greater poverty also exists.

“It is not by chance, however, that the geographic and social distribution of illiteracy is almost the same as that of poverty. Illiterates are, as a rule, also the poorest, the most poorly fed, the least healthy, the most disadvantaged and exploited” he said.

M’membe highlighted several reasons behind this issue of lack of children in education. Reasons included the distances which students have to travel to reach school, deplorable material conditions of the schools as well as lack of training for teaching staff.

“Another factor to be borne in mind is the insufficient training of teaching staff and the lack of ways and means to remedy this insufficiency, which has its effect on the limited and poor-quality teaching provided.”

In finishing his reflections, M’membe demonstrated his concerns on the impact which mass media is having on the issue.

“These very mass media are working to create a consumerist image devoid of all rationality and are trying to impose mesmerising illusions on our people as absolute truths.”

Subsequently Zambians are being fed an image of what cultural development ‘should’ look like, when, in fact, this truth is simply an illusion according to M’membe.