THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE LEARNING-(UNZAZOU)

POLICY ANALYSIS, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION-MDEA 504.

NAME: Morgan Chisha Ntinda

ID: 721000120

ASSIGNMENT: Two (Term Paper)

QUESTION: Examine the Influence of Politics on the Educational Policy

Formulation and Implementation.
The success of Educational Policy Formulation and Implementation is dependent
on a number of factors such as the economy, the Ideologies (manifesto of the
political party in government and politics (political system) as whole. However, it
increasingly evident that the most influential factor of them all is Political system
of a country, as others seem to be more or brought about by politics in
Educational Policy Formulation and Implementation. Therefore, this academic
writing will examine the influence of Politics on the Educational Policy
Formulation and Implementation in Zambia, as such key terminologies in the
question will be defined, these been Politics, Educational Policy, Policy
Formulation and Policy Implementation.

Politics

Nnoli (1986:9) aptly defined politics as all those activities which are directly or
indirectly associated with the seizure of state power, the consolidation of state
power and the use of state power. Politics has come to mean the allocation of
social services, amenities and various government facilities to the various groups
in the country.

Educational Policy

According to Pressman and Wildavsky. (1973), educational policies are the

course of action that is necessary for the conduct of education. He further stressed
that policies made both inside and outside educational institutions to provide
guidance in the conduct of educational activities are educational policies.
According to Magnen (1993) educational policy refers to specific goals arrived at
and it must be pursued through educational institution. It can be refer to a
proposal, an on-going program, or the goals of a program, or major decisions.
Educational policy concerns the formulation of a decision, its implementation and
evaluation. In other words, educational policies are guidelines or law formulated
and implemented by the government for the sole aim of effective managing the
educational system.

Policy Formulation
According to Magnen (1993), policy formulation is the stage which the policy
makers or actors take decisions as to what is to be done and how it should be
achieved. According to Anderson in Adenike, Ajayi, Adewale and Odumlami
(2009), involves the development of pertinent and acceptable causes of action for
dealing with public problems. He further stressed that formulation includes all
activities that lead to correct operational plans of action for the attainment of basic
policy goals. Other activities include identification of source of data, collection of
data and analysis and formulation of policy options, organization and institutional
framework for policy formulation, deliberations and consultants and draft content
of the policy proposals. To crown it all, policy formulation is a stage where policy
makers take decisions or positions that have direct bearing on educational
activities.

Policy Implementation

Egonmwam (1991), describes policy implementation as the stage where

preparations made earlier, the plans, the design and analyses proposed are tested
to see how really they are. In other words, policy implementation refers to the
process of translating policy issues into practical terms. Furthermore, policy
implementation is the application of policy statements into real life situations in
order to deal with problems and issues that have direct bearing on the lives of
people. Educational management consider policy implementation as the execution
and delivery of educational policies.

It is worth noting that in a democratic country like Zambia, many of public

policies are mainly dependent on the executive for their success as the president
assumes more than half authority, from the policy’s formulation to its
implementation.

Planning is a very critical element or factor that need to be considered during the
process of formulating implementing policies at all levels of education. Planning
according to Psacharopoulos (1994) is a rational and intelligent process of
preparing or arranging a set of decisions for future actions directed at achieving
goals and objectives by the best means (methods) possible. The desire to achieve
perfect implementation of educational policies programs and activities in this
period of unstable economy demand careful proper and adequate planning.
Inadequate planning halts the implementation of many policies in Zambian
educational system. Planning has to go with how much resources is needed such
as time, funding, human resource (people/staff) and facilities to ensure successful
implementation of educational policies, the availability of all these components in
planning are pretty much determined by the policy makers, who are mainly the
politicians. In terms of time politicians will determine how long a policy will last
or how much time will be given to a policy to see how before it is terminated or
succeeded, it has been observed that policy makers often give implementing
agencies very little time to implement policy and such policies have not been
implemented as originally planned, for so long it pays their political incentives or
if achieves its intended goal.

Additionally, Funding issues relevant to education policy implementation include

whether there is enough funding, where it comes from, whether it is earmarked
and who decides how to allocate it, the amount of funds channeled towards the
formulation and implementation of an educational policy determines the success
of the policy, in all this politicians often have a major role to play, in terms of
mobilization and distribution of the funds towards the processes in educational
policy formulation and implementation. For instance, in recent years the
government introduced computer studies in basic education, without having
enough funds (resources) to procure enough equipment needed in such
introduction, to which to this day a lot of pupils do not fully benefit from such a
progressive subject. It is worth noting that sometimes, policy makers will reserve
more funds for one policy than others as there may be limited resources to fund
all educational policies in place

Education as a huge industry demands huge amount of money to carry out the
implementation of its policies and programs in the area of infrastructure, staff
salaries, promotions and training, as the formulation and implementation of an
educational policy times many years to play out (Psacharopoulos, 1984). Absence
of quality education in Zambia can be attributed to low budgetary allocation. Due
to paucity of funds, most of the projects and programs to be executed have been
abandoned. Best example is the localization of curriculum according to economic
activities of a province by the Government. Lamenting the poor funding. Almost
anything about educational funding that could be problem turns out to be one in
Zambia. Problems have been reported in terms of understanding, corruption and
fraud in fund utilization, undue delay in funding, super inflation, over invoicing,
misuse and abuse of due process in funds, profiteering and disbursement, and
improper allocation of fund on the basis of sentiments and political expediency.

Much more, Staffing is an indispensable factor needed for the formulation and
implementation of educational policies and programs. This is because with
adequate provision of materials and financial resources if experienced and
qualified manpower are not there, no meaningful implementers at the classroom
level. It is in this premise that Karst (1987), observes that appropriate and quality
education depends on the quality of the teaching staff and how they are treated.
He believes that human resources are the life wire of the education system
because they plan, organize, direct, coordinate and control the use of others
available resources for the achievement of educational goals and objectives. As
such, it may interest you to note that quality education depends on the quality of
scholarly, versatile, experienced and qualified teachers and the manner of their
welfare to motivate them. Further, Recruitment of staff in educational sector is
based on political considerations other than merit, qualification and experience.
Many teachers in previous year in Zambia were recruited based on their political
affiliation with the ruling political party, despite some not meeting the required
qualification as well as others were put on payroll, even when they never reported
(ghost workers) to undertake the educational policies which are in place. Further,
the problem recruitment of human resource can not only be see with
implementation staff , but also with policy analysts as those that may be seen as
opposing or do not agree with the government may be sidelined despite their
educational qualification.

According to Dye (1992) confirms that in the early stages of public policy
educational policy inclusive, many stakeholders are involved to help the policy
makers in policy formulation, some of these are policy analysts who could either
be internal or external experts. These policy analyst bring with them to this
process, knowledge and skills that they use to critically analyze public policies,
enabling them to guide the public policies makers (who are mainly the politicians)
on the effects of the proposed public policy on the political, economic and social
life on the country. In the early stages educational policy, experts conduct
research to collect data, to ascertain benefits of the policy, beneficiaries of policy,
and economic benefits among others that is used to come up with concrete
recommendations to the policy makers. However, it is increasingly evident that
these recommendations may be impacted by political factors, even when they are
independently provided by the experts, as the politicians will decide which of the
recommendations will be put into a public educational policy document, which
reflects the governments’ political ideologies. As such, these policy analysts may
tend to make recommendations that incorporate the political party in powers’
manifesto and ideologies in the public policy document. On the other hand if the
policy analysts’ recommendations are already leaning towards the governments’
sort of policy such are put on fast track kind of process.

Politics has another way to influence the formulation and implementation of

educational policy in Zambia through national assembly (parliament), which is
the legislature win of government and contains politicians who are the Members
of parliament belonging to ruling and opposition political parties. There are some
policies that will need parliament’s approval while some will never need such
processes, but those that need the approval of parliament. Many times it has been
observed that opinions have been divided in parliament over certain policy
enactment through discussions and debates, as those in opposition see some of the
proposed policy would won’t be beneficial to the constituents they represent as
well as others may see it as disadvantaging them in term of gaining popularity
among the country’s populace (Jaggars and Stacy, 2014). As such, when the
proposal is put to a vote, such a proposal may lack the required number of votes
to put in implementation process. On the other hand, in instances where the all see
how beneficial to the ordinary citizens, proposed policies go through without
much time wasted and put in the implementation phase. It is worth noting that
there some policies that do not need the debate and adoption of the national
assembly, which only need cabinets’ approval, such an educational policy are
formulated then and then put implementation stage with or without it meeting the
needs of the citizens.

The implication of the proliferation of universities on a bursaries/loan scheme

which the government through High Education Loans and Scholarships Board
(formerly Bursaries Committee) given to students in government owned
universities and colleges. Initially, this scheme was offered to the two universities
namely The University of Zambia and Copperbelt University, which was
parliament approved back then, which recently the government through High
Education Loans and Scholarships Board thought of restructuring this scheme to
cater for other government owned universities, as it has left many of the admitted
students not acquiring the scheme, in the name of putting other students from
other students on the scheme from other tertiary institutions in Zambia, which has
been viewed as the outcome of the bid by the politicians to impress the electorates
without taking into consideration the financial implication of the policy.

Consequently, the dichotomous educational policies and programmes in the

different provinces and districts due to political party inclinations tended to tilt the
educational systems expansion especially the basic education in a way that it
would be tremendously rapid in some provinces but relatively slow in others. The
political party impact on educational development in the country might have party
impact on educational development in the country might have in the long-run
subverted other laudable political objective such as equality of opportunity to
education, bridging educational gap, even education growth and development as
well as the use of education to promote national unity (Lucas, 1998). It is
pertinent to note that the dramatic development in the politics of Education sector
is the decision by the government to locate basic education in provinces and
districts which do not have enough infrastructures.
Bassey (2011) asserts that for meaningful implementation of an educational
policy to be recorded, conducive learning environment is crucial. Such
environment should include educational facilities such as good and spacious
buildings, libraries, laboratories, and teaching aids. It is with great dismay to note
that during policy formulation process the Government employ the services of
well trained and qualified policy makers in education to formulate a viable and
reliable policies in education that can stand the test of time. But coming to the
implementation of policies, a lot of issues aggravated and school infrastructural
facilities that Government vow that will be provided are not given or are provided
haphazardly. Today in this period of economic recession, most of our schools,
more especially those in the remote areas are in deplorable condition thereby
making learning unconducive and unbearable. It is in this connection that
Rutschow (2018) lament that in most primary schools in the country, the picture is
that of dilapidated and derelict school infrastructure and lack of basic essential
facilities which make school environment very unattractive and unappealing to
children besides hampering learning that goes on in such schools.

Educational policy formulation and implementation are influenced by political

incentives of politicians (Quade, 1982). Many times than not, majority of
Politicians in Zambia only care about the end product of the policies rather the
processes involved, for so long the political incentives are met. Even when they
have made some mistakes in similar policies. For example, in Zambia an
educational policy of building a basic school every after 5kilometers in rural
areas, has been partially abandoned in order to push for a more ruling political
party policies. Sometimes, politicians formulate and push for implementation of
educational policies show those in opposition who is in-charge.

In conclusion, there are many factors that contribute the formulation and
implementation of an educational policy as the foregone discussion as evidently
demonstrated, which are mainly stemmed around politics and its players. As such,
depending on how these contribute how much these policies to the political profit
of politicians, some policies will not be considered for formulation whereas others
will be slow in terms of their formulation. On the other hand others will be
considered based on their goals, benefits, objectives and terms, as policy makers
will feel obliged to do what their constituents expect of them.

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