Implications of Policy and Legal Frameworks on Higher Education in Zambia

Abstract

Policy and legal frameworks are enablers for the delivery of appropriate higher education (HE) in a country. Zambia is currently implementing reforms in the HE sub-sector within the context of the policy and legal frameworks. These frameworks have implications on the provision of HE. The objectives of the paper are to: identify the policy and legal frameworks for the HE sub-sector; and determine the implications of these frameworks on HE. A document analysis method was used for the study in order to determine the relevant policy and legal frameworks on HE. In particular, the analysis used qualitative data purposively collected from the following documents: (1) Educating Our Future: National Policy on Education of 1996; (2) Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Policy of 1996; (3) Higher Education Act No. 4 of 2013 and Zambia Qualifications Authority Act No. 13 of 2011; (5) Higher Education Loans and Scholarships Act No. 31 of 2016; (6) Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TEVET) Act No. 13 of 1998 as amended by the TEVET Act No. 11 of 2005; and (7) selected Government Gazette notices. The study findings are that the higher education policy and legal frameworks implications are liberalization, quality assurance, appropriate responses to the national needs, flexibility in training programs, financing, partnerships, accountability, and relevance of training programs offered. The paper concludes that there are multiple policy and legal frameworks implications on HE in Zambia but key among these are registration and accreditation of learning programs, and development of quality assurance systems to address the multitude of the twenty-first century challenges and demands of excellence in HE.