FREE EDUCATION TO ADDRESS MANY CHALLENGES – KASANDA

By Lumbiwe Mwanza

IT is critical that the free Education policy is well utilized to address existing challenges arising from child labour, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, assistant Labour commissioner Mukamasole Kasanda.

Millions of school children in Zambia now have hopes of attaining secondary level education following the free education policy unveiled by the new administration.

Speaking to The Scoop Ms. Kasanda said that as Zambia joined other countries that had completely removed the biggest barrier to access to education, it was worth emphasising that the general public took advantage of the Free Education Policy and not use children for intensive labour activities.

She said that currently, there were no excuses as to why children could not be in school as financial barriers towards attaining education had been addressed.

“As we are all aware, we have the Free Education Policy. This will help in addressing illiteracy challenges as well as to address child labour abuse cases. The issue of sending children to the farms to do extensive activities is not right. There is no excuse now not to have every child in school. The only financial hurdle that may still be existing is just to buy a uniform but that is not an excuse not to have a child in school, ” Ms. Kasanda said.

She said that child labour had negative impact on children’s health hence the need to ensure that engagement of children in labour intensive activities was avoided.

“As the Government, we want to eradicate all forms of child labour by having all children in schools. The issue of sending children from rural areas to urban areas to work as maids should stop. Education is free and children should be put in schools instead of keeping them in homes as maids,” she said.

She said that child work and child labour were two different issues which members of the public should understand.

She emphasized that efforts aimed at raising awareness of the importance of education for all children and mobilising a wide array of actors to improve and expand education infrastructure would continue being scaled up.

She said that strengthening formal and transitional education systems that encouraged working children and those at risk of working to attend school remained a priority.

She said that the Government will continue looking at ways of investing in community-based mobilization strategies to address the reasons children do not attend school.