“Zambia’s New Poverty is not Money, it’s Mismatched Education” – Professor Chinsembu
Higher Education Authority (HEA) Director-General, Professor Kazhila C. Chinsembu, has declared that poverty in Zambia is no longer defined by the lack of income, but by the absence of the correct type of higher education.
Professor Chinsembu said this during his Keynote Address delivered on Thursday, 4th December, 2025, on the final day of the 2nd National Research and Innovation Symposium, which is being hosted at Garden Court Hotel in Kitwe by the Copperbelt University (CBU), in partnership with the Ministry of Education, from 2nd to 5th December 2025.
Professor Chinsembu noted that it was because of this important aspect of higher education that His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zambia, Mr. Hakainde Hichilema, this year directed that education, and higher education in particular, should be classified as an economic sector.
“The starting point is higher education,” he said. “Higher education is the strategic lever that can catapult and sustain Zambia’s competitiveness in the global economy. Therefore, when we debate its flaws, we must not lose sight of this truth: nothing else performs this role at scale.”
The Director-General stated that for this to be achieved, higher education needed to be deconstructed and reconstructed.
“If we are to transform the economy, we must first destroy the old system of higher education and build a completely new system,” he said, explaining that higher education is the best economic policy that can allow students to convert knowledge into goods and services in order to reduce poverty.
Professor Chinsembu further explained that transforming higher education required a complete overhaul and re-envisioning of the sub-sector, and that such transformation should not shy away from causing epistemological ruptures and jettisoning archaic or irrelevant curricula.
“Transformation must have a strategic intent,” he said. “It cannot be a random, aimless transformation. Unless we develop a high-risk appetite, transformation of higher education will not be successful. It will not even begin. Therefore, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) must place teaching, learning, and research in the national context.”
Professor Chinsembu’s Keynote Address, titled ‘The Best Economic Policy Is Higher Education: Transforming Higher Education to Transform the Economy’, emphasised the singular positive contribution that higher education can provide.
“Universities are the engines that power medical breakthroughs, create technological innovation, and produce intellectual leadership,” he said, adding, “The economy of knowledge versus the economy of goods and services, that is, intellectual property versus movable and immovable property, has one goal: to convert knowledge into goods and services.”
The Director-General, however, lamented that despite this being the goal, the story of higher education in Zambia has been one of diminishing returns. He noted that many university campuses have been turned into exclusive spaces where staff and students pursue a culture of comfort and pomposity, fuelled by academic arrogance.
Professor Chinsembu warned that higher education must be transformed with renewed commitment to quality, relevance, and accountability, as the country’s development ambitions would remain out of reach unless universities strengthened academic standards and produced graduates who were assets and not liabilities to the economy. He noted that this depended on the presence of a critical mass of skilled professionals who constitute the academic staff.
“In 1997, the Bobby Bwalya Commission of Inquiry noted that without significant attention to the retention, motivation, and commitment of this critical mass in the university, the problem of quality in the core functions of the university is bound to persist,” he said.
The Director-General further added that quality graduates could only come from institutions where lecturers are supported, valued, and equipped to deliver.
The Guest of Honour at the Symposium was the Honourable Minister of Education, Mr. Douglas Munsaka Syakalima, MP, who was represented by the Director – University Education, Mr. Brian Makufele.
Download and read Professor Chinsembu’s Keynote Address here: https://hea.org.zm/download/the-best-economic-policy-is-higher-education/?wpdmdl=10320&refresh=69317c45c7f611764850757
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Professor Chinsembu during his presentation at the 2nd National Research and Innovation Symposium at Garden Court in Kitwe.
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