Strenghtening Zambia's public universities
24 Dec 2009
In 2009, Nuffic financed two new NPT projects supporting the Technical Vocational Teachers’ College (TVTC), the University of Zambia and the Copperbelt University. These successor projects provide follow-up support until the phasing out of NPT in July 2012.
TVTC receives support in strengthening entrepreneurship training and distance education programmes and in creating interactive linkages with the local labour market. The two universities will receive ongoing support in improved ICT use for administration and finance processes and institutional management. Special attention is given to student registration systems.
Preparing for NICHE
Under a parallel process, Nuffic also started the identification of sectors to be supported by NICHE. During the first identification mission in April 2009, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Lusaka expressed its wish to focus on the higher education sector. In the Embassy’s Multi Annual Strategic Plan (MASP) the education sector has been prioritized as a bilateral aid sector. Under the framework of a Joint Assistance Strategy of Zambia, signed by the Embassy and other major donors, the Embassy is the lead donor in Zambia’s education sector, together with Irish Aid.
Focus on Higher Education
Special focus has been given to the priorities of the Ministry of Education (MoE). In recent years an increasing amount of the country’s education budget is allocated to universities. However, at present, the higher education sector is unable to respond effectively to the demand for post-secondary education and to the needs of the labour market, in terms of knowledge and skills.
University reform on agenda
The MoE has now set up a Special Committee on university reform to develop programmes to improve efficiency, effectiveness and relevance. A recent university conference, facilitated with help of the first NPT project supporting the Zambian universities, also revealed the need for reform. The MoE’s strategy is to focus on a better integration of tertiary education in sector dialogues. Nuffic and the Embassy also visited Zambia’s three public universities, in line with the MoE’s desire to continue capacity building support for universities provided under the NPT programme, as part of NICHE.
Capacity building needs
Different stakeholders in the higher education sector have identified the specific capacity building needs in their sector. These are:
- facilitating a reform programme to foster governance, regulation and quality assurance
structures for university education and to increase cost-efficiency, output levels and the responsiveness of education programmes to public and private sector developments; - improving the internal and external efficiency of public universities;
- strengthening the capacity of public universities to achieve higher outputs in terms of graduate
quality and quantity (with a focus on female students), research studies and consultancy services with a special emphasis on creating stronger linkages with the labour market and the gender balance.
Next steps
The NICHE identification phase will result in a Programme Outline and Plan of Implementation. It is expected that the Embassy and the Zambian Ministry of Education will endorse these documents before the end of this year. The first calls for tenders to implement projects supporting higher education in Zambia will be published in the first half of 2010.
