The Effect of Free Primary Education on the Management of Public Primary Schools: A Case of Kitwe District on the Copperbelt Province of Zambia

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of Free Primary Education on the Management of public Primary schools in Kitwe District which is on the Copperbelt province of Zambia. This case study aimed at achieving the following objectives: to investigate the sources of revenue for managing public primary schools, to identify the challenges and opportunities of sourcing revenue for the management of public primary Schools and to find out the strategies used by public primary schools to overcome the challenges of sourcing revenue for the management of schools. A sample of ten public primary schools from a population of forty six public primary schools was randomly selected for the study. The respondents were the Ministry of General education staff from the District education board secretarys office, head teachers, deputy head teachers, senior teachers, class teachers and pupils from the sampled schools. The study used both the quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect data by using questionnaires and interview schedules. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically whilst quantitative data was analyzed using excel and statistical package for social sciences (SPSS 20.0) to obtain descriptive statistics. The study found out that the sources of revenue for managing the sampled public primary schools included; government funding, PTA contributions, school tuck-shops, renting out school facilities and donations from well-wishers. The study pointed out that the selected schools faced some challenges when sourcing revenue which included; delay in disbursement of funds, negative attitude of parents towards helping schools run as a result of free primary education and some local companies and non-governmental organisations not willing to help. Despite the challenges, it was established that there were also opportunities regarding revenue sourcing. It was further revealed that the selected schools had put in place strategic measures to help them overcome the stated challenges of revenue sourcing. The study concluded that managing public primary schools comes with its own challenges when it comes to sourcing revenue for effective management. Based on the findings, the study recommended that; government may consider enhancing partnerships and support from other agencies such as Non Governmental Organizations to supplement its effort in the management of Public primary schools, the Government may consider revising the grants given to public primary schools and expedite the disbursement to facilitate proper planning by the district and school managements and schools administrators may consider promoting strong school community partnerships and encourage parents to take more proactive roles in matters regarding their childrens education.