Wilfrid Laurier University Scholars Commons @ Laurier Youth and Children's Studies Laurier Brantford 2006 Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship through Civic Education: Critical Perspectives on Zambia Ali A. Abdi University of Alberta Edward Shizha Wilfrid Laurier University, eshizha@wlu.ca Ignatio Bwalya University of Zambia Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/brantford_yc Recommended Citation Abdi, Ali A.; Shizha, Edward; and Bwalya, Ignatio, "Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship through Civic Education: Critical Perspectives on Zambia" (2006). Youth and Children's Studies. 3. http://scholars.wlu.ca/brantford_yc/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Laurier Brantford at Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Youth and Children's Studies by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca. RECASTING POSTCOLONIAL CITIZENSHIP THROUGH CIVIC EDUCATION: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ZAMBIA* Ali A. Abdi Department of Educational Policy Studies University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Edward Shizha Lecturer, University of Zimbabwe, Harare Research Associate, University of Alberta Ignatio Bwalya Lecturer, Faculty of Education University of Zambia, Lusaka INTRODUCTION Since the early 1990s and, perhaps, as one effect of the emergence of the uni-polar world, there have been a lot of “democratizing” activities in the Sub-Saharan context, with Zambia, a central African country of about 10 million, at the forefront of these processes. While democracy, in one form or another, has come to Zambia, socio-economic underdevelopment continually pervades the land, and even at the political level, the opening-up process has been at best limited, if not still totally in favor of the elites. In this article we critique these issues via the prospect of enlarging citizenship (civic) education possibilities for a more viable and inclusive social development. Citizenship is more than a set of political rights or responsibilities granted or mediated by the state. Citizenship, as well as the political education that aims to enhance it, is grounded in the practices, experiences, and meanings articulated and acted upon by individuals and social groups and is actively negotiated by individuals, including those that may be selectively marginalized in one context or another. The agency of individuals and groups should be considered when *The authors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) for its support in the preparation and writing of this work. SPRING 2006 47 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA defining and constructing notions of citizenship. This is the essence of democratic governance in contemporary societies. For this to happen, adequate political or citizenship education provisions should be in place. These could be structured formally or informally, either through formal civic education provided by the state or informal structures of civil society. Based on these understandings of citizenship, this article contends that with current civic space not reflecting the promise of democracy in the post-Kaunda era, more citizenship education programs should be incorporated into learning platforms, which should be conducive to the realization of expansively inclusive democratic processes and relationships. The term “postcolonial” in the title is not intended to locate a critical problematization of postcolonialism, but to serve as a time-framed idea that could place the analysis of this work in the post-independence period of Zambian history. Needless to say, there should be an implication of a non-viable postcolonial and mainly dependent nation-state in all aspects of Zambian postcolonial political and socio-economic development. Among the issues discussed in the following pages are a brief conceptualization of democracy in the Zambian public space, political education and youth, public participation and the economy, political education and the civil society, and how civic education can be effectively incorporated in the public schooling system. Before we end, we share with our readers a synopsis of a work by Bratton, Alderfer, Bowser, and Temba (1999) that provides an interesting window on the effects of civic education on political culture in Zambia. The main purpose for including this is to show not only the complexity but also the promise of citizenship education in the country. As should be clear, we use the terms “citizenship education” and “civic education” interchangeably, even if the former could subsume more into its sphere of analysis. Also note that while we use the term “democracy” in a generic form, we should be aware of the context-based problems that democracy, as it is developed and practiced in the West, could face in the African situation. And despite the need to minimally re-culture some tenets of democracy (Abdi, 2002), we submit that it could still be more useful than most other systems that were tried since the formation of nation-states in the continent which, as Basil Davidson (1993) reminded us, was itself problematic in more ways than one. One possible way of seeing democracy in the global context and, by extension, in post-1991 Zambia, could be what Anthony Gid48 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia dens, in his effective short book, Runaway World (2003), described as a system of government that isn’t “an all or nothing thing” (p. 69), but with different versions and with a space for contestations so as to continually improve the service of public institutions in the service of society. DEMOCRACY IN THE ZAMBIAN CONTEXT In 1991, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won the elections on a reform platform, promising to reverse the economic decline and introduce more inclusive politics (Bigsten & Kayizzi-Mugerwa, 2000; Momba, 2003). Chiluba (1995), who was then the head of MMD and became Zambia’s first democratically elected president in 1991, in his book Democracy: The Challenge of Change, defined democracy in the following way: Firstly, democracy values each and every individual person as a rational, moral unit, and recognizes the right to, and capacity for, a measure of self-government. Secondly, there is the idea of the supremacy of the people. Thirdly… democracy recognizes that consent of the people makes possible the formation of a governance of the people….A fourth important characteristic of democracy is accountability…. Finally, there is the rule of law. (pp. 4-5) Chiluba (1995) identified important characteristics of democratic governance that citizens should enjoy and which citizenship education should seek to foster. Citizenship or civic education is embedded in democratic principles and practices identified in the above quotation and should help to “re-engage young people [adults included] in civic or political life, by providing them with the knowledge and the skills they need to be active citizens” (Morris, John, & Halpern, 2003). Chiluba further argued that Politics is about power. Its business is to manage and to resolve conflict, not just over access to scarce resources, although that is a particular notable feature in developing countries, especially in Africa, but also conflict of opinion about how society should be organized and about matters of life in general. The manner in which power is acquired is bound to influence the way in which it is exercised. (p. 6) Chiluba (1995) identified some important aspects and features of democracy, but he did not explain how people can be empowered to hold government accountable to its policies and decisions nor SPRING 2006 49 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA did he identify tools needed to implement checks and balances on government’s commitment to democratic governance and rule of law. For democracy to flourish and be consolidated, citizens must be able to evaluate government performance over time (Rakner & Svasand, 2004). This calls for a project that incorporates civic or political education into the formal or informal education system of Zambia. Ironically, while Chiluba engaged a theoretical platform of democratic governance, his rule was filled with questionably undemocratic decisions. His two presidential terms were symptomatic of what ails Zambian democracy. Chiluba was, for example, responsible for making economically destructive unilateral decisions that included the selling of state assets without consulting people through their parliamentarian representatives, and more often to foreign investors whose main motives were to make profits, which mostly came at the expense of the Zambian public. He went against his principles and definitions of democracy when he overlooked “the supremacy of the people” and “consent of the people” in his social, economic, and political decisions. Chiluba focused his governance more on the politics of power than on the politics of accountability. While there has been democratic political change in Zambia, there is paucity of research evidence on the actual nature of young people’s views, attitudes and activities in relation to participation in society. Phiri (2003) stated that although plural political views exist, the government does not involve people, especially the young people in the political decision-making process in Zambia. For example, Chiluba’s decision to declare Zambia a Christian state was widely opposed because the declaration was against his definition of democracy as there had been no participation of the people in making that decision (Phiri, 2003). It seems, therefore, that the idea of democracy was imposed on people without any debate. Consultation and debate are the essence of democracy and the principles that civic education needs to inculcate in students and citizens, in general. POLITICAL EDUCATION AND THE YOUTH In Zambia, as in other parts of Africa, young people now constitute the majority of the population, and their integration into society, in terms of both civic responsibility and membership, has and will have economic, cultural, political, and social consequences. In light of the failure of the nationalist political enterprise, which had set for itself the double objective of economic development and social 50 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia justice, the Zambian society increasingly looks to young people as instruments of change (Diouf, 2003). The fact that students in tertiary educational institutions are exposed to both universal rights and Zambian cultures has led to continuing redefinitions of their role in socio-economic and political spaces in Zambia. Through student activism and advocacy, they continually challenge the shortcomings of government’s form of “democratic” governance, social injustices, economic degeneration, and corruption. However, Diouf reported that the dramatic irruption of young people in the public and domestic spheres and the demand for social justice seems to have resulted in a redefinition and reconstruction of Zambian youth as dangerous, criminal and a threat to society. While civic education needs to be based on active student engagement, students need to know that civil or political issues are usually problematic and contested; resolution involves debate, discussion, negotiation, and compromise (Kennedy, 2003). However, in Zambia, students are usually marginalized and silenced through use of the repressive state apparatus, such as the police force. For instance, in 1992 and 1997 when students at the University of Zambia raised the issue of inadequate financial resources for their book allowances, they were ignored by the state, and when they went on strike to force the government to engage in dialogue, the state employed violence and closed the university for more than six months (Momba, 2003). The loss of students’ status as “the hope of the nation” is reflected in the underfunding of education, and the physical and intellectual collapse of educational institutions, such as the University of Zambia, high rates of school dropout, high levels of unemployment, the massive and aggressive presence of young people on the streets and at public garbage dumps of Lusaka and other Zambian cities. In postcolonial cultures, especially a good number in the subSaharan African context, these descriptions of despair and de-development have become some quasi-permanent signposts of the so-called global village. Here, despite the rhetoric of globalization and the “democratizing” African state, the presumably noble programs of socialization through education and work have become anomic and pathological with the street becoming a cultural theatre in which young people struggle against poverty and repressive economic policies such as the now discursively celebrated but substantively inadequate and externally imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). In an effort to bring stabilization and growth to the economy, reduce SPRING 2006 51 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA debt, arrest hyperinflation, eliminate budget deficits, and reduce huge public expenditures, as well as encouraging exports and liberalizing the economy, Zambia has sacrificed its social responsibilities, especially equitable distribution of educational, health, and employment creation services (Kufekisa-Akapelwa, 2001). The range of economic reforms in Zambia has included the removal of subsidies, liberalization, and privatization which has hit hard on both young people and the poorest of the poor in Zambia. After the scrapping of educational subsidies, it was estimated that in 1999, illiteracy rates among the youth aged between 14 to 20 years were higher than those of persons between 21 to 45 years (Lungwangwa, 1999). Reduced budgetary expenditures on education and cost recovery measures introduced through SAPs, a disastrous recipe that is well known to most Africans, have resulted in a large proportion of school-age children dropping out or not attending school at all. This is an infringement and violation of the right of the child to education as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, these prescriptions are emanating from Western countries and their institutions (cf. World Bank Report, 1994) where full enrolment and achievement at the pre-tertiary education levels have been achieved. Yet, almost five years into the third millennium, many of Zambia’s children need protection and assistance because of rising levels of poverty, malnutrition, exploitive child labour, and homelessness. These harmful conditions make it difficult for many children to exercise their educational, social, cultural, and economic rights in the neo-liberal realities of current Zambian citizenship. The right to education is essential, indeed, fundamental for the exercise of civil and political rights such as the right to freedom of expression, freedom of scientific research, and a variety of other political rights and freedoms. Even more important is the role education plays in an individual’s access to his or her other social, economic, and cultural rights necessary to attain sustainable livelihood. All of these provisions notwithstanding, the right to education under these international human rights instruments is not apparently justifiable; that is, one cannot bring a suit against the government or local authority or even a parent or guardian for failing to place a child in school. More dangerously, the constitution of Zambia does not provide for the right to education (Momba, 2003). 52 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia SOCIO-ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION AND THE ECONOMY Zambia’s political, economic, and social development is constrained by its narrow economic base, which historically depended on copper mining, concentrated ownership of assets, limited foreign and domestic investment, the legacy of authoritarian leadership, corruption, and high unemployment (USAID, 2003). Callaghy (1994) argued that democratic polities and practices require a viable economic base. The poor development of the Zambian economy is also reflected in the failure to create employment for its school graduates. Bigsten and Kayizzi-Mugerwa (2000) observed that formal sector paid employment was actually lower in 1998 than it was in 1990. This could point to another important problem in the country’s socioeconomic underdevelopment: As democratic development did not materialize for the majority of the population, multi-party elections (democracy in the Zambian context) did not result in the expected advancement in either employment or wage improvement. It is now estimated that more than 80% of Zambians live at extreme poverty levels (Phiri, 2003). The economic problems facing Zambia lead one to believe that young people and other citizens in general focus more on bread and butter issues, looking for ways to survive at the expense of political or civic participation. Poverty mutes the voice of the poor as they pay more attention to alleviating their plight than governance issues. Yet placing citizenship and governance issues on the pivotal platform remains the sine qua non for long-term African social development (Museveni, 2000; Sandbrook, 2000). The point here should be simple: As the political system sets public policy, which in turn defines and prescribes the allocation as well as the management of resources, a non-inclusive political space is, on all accounts, problematic and conducive to the continuity of stunted potentialities in Africa and elsewhere. By extension, education, work, and good health, which could be achieved in viable, democratic spaces, are the pillars for sociopolitical development. A well-informed society knows its rights and can demand accountability from its leaders. In the case of Zambia, the incidents of corruption among government ministers suggests that personal accumulation from state resources was an important consideration in motivating their political activity (Bartlett, 2000), while the demands of the International Monetary Fund work against SPRING 2006 53 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA socio-political liberties. The majority of Zambians have been stripped of their rights to shelter, food, health, clean water, education and work in the interests of the market that benefits faceless multi-nationals (Ruiz & Minguez, 2001) and corrupt government officials and politicians. CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL EDUCATION In a society in which people find themselves unable to individually hold the government accountable for its performance, civil society becomes an important space for political education. The central thesis of the civil society discourse in relation to democratization is that civil society’s political role is indispensable to political transformation towards greater democracy in Africa (Nasong’o, 2002). Civil society is hailed as having played a central role in authoritarian regime change in Zambia in 1991. Indeed, Zambia was one of the few African spaces where genuine popular uprising led to change as opposed to most other countries where the ‘reconstitutionalization’ of the old guard was undertaken (Hutchful, 1997; Ihonvbere, 1996). In spite of the economic hurdles and socio-political problems that continue to face the country, Zambia still has a vibrant civil society that is having a positive impact on civic education. Diamond (1999) viewed the role of civil society in Zambia as involving (a) standing between the private sphere and the state providing the basis for the control of state by society, and thus for democratic political institutions to be effective; (b) supplementing the role of political parties in stimulating political participation, increasing the political efficacy and skill of citizens, and promoting an appreciation of the obligations and rights of democratic citizenship; (c) promoting civic awareness through civic education; and (d) disseminating information widely and so empowering citizens in the collective pursuit and defense of their interests and values. Civil society thus strengthens the social foundation of democracy by enhancing the accountability, responsiveness, inclusiveness, effectiveness, and hence legitimacy of the political system (Diamond; Nasong’o, 2002). Civic education can take many forms depending on the context, and MS-Zambia (2001) perceived civic education in Zambia as a strategy that can lead to achieving lobby and advocacy activities, thus emphasizing the role of civil society in providing citizenship education (Kennedy, 2003). Civil society is perceived as the channel 54 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia through which citizens can express their views, dissent, or support. Civil society is subsumed to enhance “authentic” contexts for learning civic knowledge and skills necessary for expressing the socio-political views of citizens. Curriculum Development Centre (CDC, n.d.a) acknowledged that civic education, good governance, and democratic values and beliefs in Zambia are driven by training offered by NGOs and other groups of civil society. Political education in Zambia has tended to rely heavily on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Although state agencies responsible for education retain some responsibility for nurturing citizenship, the task of inculcating a culture of democracy falls mainly on NGOs, mainly religious bodies, labour unions, professional associations, and community groups (Bratton et al., 1999; Morris, 2002). Bratton et al. (1999) reported the work and impact of civic activities of the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP), Civic Action Fund (CAF), and the Ministry of Education in Zambia. FODEP was a Zambian NGO that was formed by a coalition of church leaders and university-based professionals to foster widespread awareness and use of civil rights among citizens and institutional leaders. While aiming to establish a permanent institutional capacity for adult civic education in Zambia through formal classroom training and workshops, FODEP’s reach and effectiveness was limited in practice and achieved only a spotty coverage at the community level. Southern University in the USA established and administered a small grants facility, CAF, whose aim was to quickly extend civic education messages to large numbers of people, including those in remote areas, using low-cost and innovative approaches. Unlike FODEP’s classic and hierarchically elitist “diffusion of innovation” approach, which used English as a language of instruction, CAF projects used informal methods (singing, dancing, drama, and question-and-answer sessions) and a local language consonant with Zambia’s rich traditions of oral history and story-telling (Bratton et al., 1999). CAF’s projects managed to reach large numbers of people, especially through drama shows held in market places, school yards, and at sporting events. Fifty-seven community-based organizations received funds to perform activities that were related to voter participation, leadership accountability, legal assistance, political tolerance and peaceful co-existence, and the protection of the rights of children and women. SPRING 2006 55 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA Informal education provides a channel through which citizens, especially young people, can explore their ideas on civic and political education. In Zambia, labour unions, religious institutions, and NGOs are incorporating both young people and adults in their civic education programs. These civic education programs range from voter education (e.g., Adult Education Association of Zambia, sensitizing the rural voter), to long-term human rights workshops to promote dialogue (e.g., Zambian Episcopal Conference (ZEC) active in the arena of human rights), and programs on social and political rights of women (e.g., Zambia National Women’s Lobby Group (ZNWLG), which promotes women’s equal representation and participation in all levels of decision making through advocacy, lobbying and capacity building). MS-Zambia is also promoting civic education in Zambia with the hope to increase community participation in decision-making processes (MS-Zambia, 2001). The organizations are using the Freirean approach to empower communities. Dialogue and problem-posing (Freire, 1970; Shor & Freire, 1987) are at the core of their programs. The civic program approaches conducted by most civil society involve supporting communities to demand services and rights for a decent life from local, central governments, and community support institutions (MS-Zambia). Empowerment through civic education will enhance communities’ possibilities of gaining control of resources and initiatives concerning their own development. Empowerment has provided Zambian adults with civic skills which Kirlin (2003) described as not existing in a vacuum, but as part of a large set of ideas for citizens to engage in public life. Participatory democracy is likely to transform Zambians into what Westheimer and Kahne (2004) called “personally responsible, participatory and justice-oriented citizens” (p. 1). FORMAL SCHOOLING AND CIVIC EDUCATION To understand the level of and extent of citizenship education in Zambia, one has to look at the role of the state in providing civic education. In addition, one needs to review the content of the school curriculum and its impact on social and political attitudes. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of literature on these issues on Zambia. Whether citizenship can be taught is itself an issue of contention, as is whether it should be taught (Morris et al., 2003). Early studies in 56 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia the USA concluded that teaching civics was not hugely successful (Langton & Jennings, 1968; Patrick, 1977), although a central aspect of Deweyean philosophy of education (see Dewey, 1926) is the relationship between higher, mass-oriented levels of education and democracy. Denver and Hands (1990) found, on the other hand, that teaching politics to students in the UK resulted in improving their knowledge but did not change their attitudes. The effect of teaching the operationalizations of citizenship (i.e., more than concepts and theories) might still be selectively effective, and the overall issue should mainly depend on how and with what media and emphasis the programs are taught. The above-stated CAF projects could serve as an example of how culturally and socially inclusive citizenship education projects could be selectively useful and effective. Some liberal theorists such as Gutman (1997) and Macedo (1995) argue that it is imperative in a liberal democratic society that civic education is designed to support a democratic way of life, and we concur with Enslin, Pedlebury & Tjiattas (2001) that in order for people to behave democratically, they must be taught the basic meanings and practices of democracy. As things are now, civic education seems to be absent from primary schools, and more attention is being paid to secondary and tertiary education curricula where the subject has been introduced with different emphasis and intentions. Overall, it seems to be the case that citizenship education in Zambia has not been considered important and has received low priority since independence in 1964 (CDC, n.d.a). Currently, though, new initiatives to expand civic education programs in senior high school are underway (Chondoka, 2003). According to Chondoka and Bwalya (2003), the Irish Aid, through its Good Governance Programme and Southern University of the United States of America, initiated the civic education programme in 2003 by providing funds to the Zambian Ministry of Education. Bratton et al. (1999) noted that in 1995, the Ministry of Education and the Southern University Democratic Governance Project USAID/ Zambia convened a national symposium involving teachers, NGO representatives, traditional leaders and government to propose a new civic education syllabus for senior high school classes, grades 10 to 12, which, previously, did not have the subject in their curricula. The lack of the subject in these classes was/is viewed as a form of disjuncture or disequilibrium in the Zambian school curriculum. SPRING 2006 57 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA In addition to the above, Chondoka and Bwalya (2003) and Curriculum Development Centre (CDC, n.d.a) observed that civic education in Zambian schools lacks continuity from basic education to university and lacks a smooth transition to university since the subject was/is not taught in grades 10 to 12. Bwalya (2004) reported that by the end of 2004, the subject syllabus should be piloted for grade 10 classes in two provinces, Central and Northern provinces, while the grade 11 syllabus was being finalized and likely to be ready for implementation in January 2005, and the grade 12 civic syllabus was likely to be ready by January 2006. The syllabi are designed to reflect the country’s multiparty political dispensation and the rights and freedoms associated with the democratization process that is underway in Zambia. The topics that have been incorporated into the Grades 10 to 12 include, among others, political development, democracy and dictatorship, human rights, gender and development, government, economic development and environment and population (CDC, n.d.b). In addition to what the Ministry of Education and its NGO partners are doing, the Zambia Civic Education Association (ZCEA) established in 1993 is also assisting in developing extracurricular programs to enhance democracy in Zambia as well as promote justice by creating greater understanding of human rights (Chakanika & Chuma, 1999). Since 1994 ZCEA has operated a civic education program in 13 secondary schools in Lusaka Province and 9 in Central Province. It launched child-rights school clubs in 2002 to focus on the rights and responsibilities of the Zambian child and rights of the child as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The vision of ZCEA is to see the establishment of a nation of empowered citizens with a development and rights culture (ZCEA, 2005). While some NGOs are working in partnership with the Ministry of Education to formulate programs for civic education in secondary schools (Chondoka, 2003), there are gaps at the tertiary level where students are left to initiate their own programs since the training of teachers to teach civic education ceased in 1978 for economic and political reasons (Chondoka & Bwalya, 2003). Students in colleges and universities attain civic knowledge through their association with informal contacts and exposure to differing perspectives, often acquired through participation in civic organizations (Mutz, 2002). Participation in these organizations should instill tolerance 58 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia in students, but their involvement in civic matters is viewed with great suspicion by the Zambian Government, which lacks tolerance towards student activism (Mphaisha, 2000). Participatory skills and civic dispositions needed for effective and responsible citizenship in a democracy can be developed through student activism which many African governments do not tolerate. For young Zambians to be socially and politically incorporated into the body politic and develop habits that promote and sustain social, political, and cultural rights, they should be given opportunities to exercise these rights and learn to fulfill responsibilities in community institutions (Flanagan, 2003). For democracies to thrive, citizens have to be taught to be democrats (Enslin et al., 2001). Hence, civic education becomes important in stimulating and supporting community initiatives to demand protection and respect of their individual and collective rights. However, efforts are also underway to reintroduce civic education in tertiary institutions in Zambia. Chondoka and Bwalya (2003) discussed the need to have the program at the University of Zambia, Nkrumah Teachers College and National In-Service Training College, the major institutions that train high school civics teachers. It is hoped that the harmonization of civic education in Zambian schools and tertiary institutions will adequately inform and sensitize the youth on their rights as citizens and also learn to uphold their and others’ constitutional rights and freedoms. What is interesting about civic education in the Zambian education system is that it is being initiated and funded by outsiders and not necessarily by Zambians themselves. This leaves one doubting the sustainability of the programs after donors have left the country. Sustainable programs should be the initiative of the local people who should have the political will to do so. Local people are the ones who are affected by governance, citizenship, and developmental issues within their communities, hence the need for them to be proactive. Nonetheless, an evaluation of the effectiveness of civic education in Zambia has indicated some benefits of the programs, even if they are introduced from outside. EVALUATION OF CIVIC EDUCATION IN ZAMBIA An evaluation of the effects of civic education on political culture in Zambia conducted by Bratton et al. (1999) revealed attitudinal change among the majority of Zambians. Bratton and colleagues found SPRING 2006 59 ABDI, SHIZHA, AND BWALYA that civic education appears to have contributed to greater political knowledge among Zambians. Through civic education Zambians seem to have acquired knowledge about the basic features of the political system, such as who holds power, structure, and function of democratic institutions, basic political and civil rights. Among core democratic values is political tolerance. Zambian civic education programs sought to maintain and raise popular acceptance of political diversity. In Bratton’s et al. (1999) study, Zambians were shown to be generally open-minded, accepting and supporting free political expression at the end of 1996. Importantly, through civic education some Zambians were discovered to be accommodative of diverse political views and to have developed analytic and evaluative skills that reinforce political tolerance. The influence of civic education depends not only on the quality of training but on participants’ selfconfidence about taking action (Bratton et al., 1999). On the question on self-efficacy and their power to influence choices for leaders who would make their lives better, the majority of Zambians exposed to civic education believed that their political participation mattered. Beyond a self-confident sense of efficacy, political participation depends on whether citizens possess the organizational skills to put their attitudes into practice (Bratton et al., 1999). This evaluation indicates a promise and viability of civic education in Zambia and the possibility for developing a culture of tolerance, accountability and, above all, a culture of political participation in determining the people of Zambia’s political, economic, social, and cultural rights. The evaluation also provides a mirror for the future of citizenship education in Africa and other nations that seek to implement democratic governance and civil rights. Accepting diversity and difference is a pointer to citizens developing what Enslin et al. (2001) called “deliberative democracy,” which encourages the role of talk, of deliberation through discussion, which is critical in developing citizens’ ability to make reasoned arguments, to cooperate with others, and to appreciate the perspectives and experiences of other points of view. CONCLUSION In spite of its socio-economic and still not fully inclusive institutional realities, Zambia’s political democratization is on the mend, i.e., getting better than where things were previously, and the vibrant civil society in the country is making measurable strides to make 60 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Recasting Postcolonial Citizenship Through Civic Education: Perspectives on Zambia citizens aware of their rights, the responsibilities of government towards its citizens, and the need for government to be accountable to its citizens. It is crucial for civil society and government to forge partnership to spread political or citizenship knowledge to the majority of its people. The findings of Bratton et al. (1999) from Zambia indicated that civic education is likely to have a positive impact on the acquisition of political knowledge, civic skills, and values as well as awareness of political, social, and cultural rights of individuals. Therefore, since the central purpose of school-based programs is by and large, to lay the groundwork for responsible democratic citizenship by educating children and young adults about types of behavior and attitudes they will need to function effectively in a democratic society (Morris, 2002), the Zambian Ministry of Education should seriously consider making civic education a coherent component of the school curricula at all levels of the Zambian education system. The community schools and Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) programs that are a feature of the Zambian education structure can be used to advance and consolidate civic education among the adult population. Media, although it is accessible to few people, strongly influences young people and can be effectively used to reinforce citizenship programs. Student participation in democratically conducted student organizations and school-based community service that are connected to civic education should be encouraged and supported (Niemi & Chapman, 1999). For democracy to survive and flourish in Zambia, students and adults must possess the skills, embody the values, and manifest the behaviors consistent with democratic tenets and the long-term social development possibilities that must emanate from that. Le chemin sera, of course, long, but the combined efforts of Zambia’s education systems, community programs, and the central role of civil society seem to be making select but important inroads to achieve this democratic goal. REFERENCES Abdi, A A. (2002, March). Citizenship education in a global context: Theoretical perspectives on sub-Saharan Africa. 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