Judging Day: HEA Puts Its Best Foot Forward
On Wednesday, 30th July, 2025, on the first day of the 97th Agriculture and Commercial Show, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) stood before the judges with a strong sense of purpose, and an even stronger exhibit.
The Authority’s climate-themed stand is in contention for three prestigious categories: Best Educational Institution Exhibit, Best Regulatory Authority Exhibit, and Best Government Exhibit.
While the final results will be announced this weekend, HEA is proud of the message that it has put forward that higher education is Zambia’s first and most scalable response to climate change.
Below, we highlight why each of these categories reflects a part of HEA’s bold vision, and why we believe our showing deserves recognition.
1. Best Educational Institution Exhibit. At its heart, our exhibit makes one thing clear and that is education is our climate weapon.
We showcased over 30 accredited, climate-specific learning programmes across Zambia’s public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), from Kapasa Makasa to Mukuba University. These programmes go beyond theory, they are training a graduate workforce prepared for green jobs, resilient agriculture, and sustainable livelihoods.
Each university programme featured on our panel is not just a degree, it’s a solution. We believe this effort alone puts HEA in a strong position as Zambia’s top educational exhibit at this year’s show.
2. Best Regulatory Authority Exhibit. This is Bridging Policy and Practice, which is HEA’s Role. We didn’t just tell judges what we do, we showed them how we do it.
Through our visual flowchart that moved from Policy → Curriculum Reform → Research → Innovation → Community Impact, we demonstrated how HEA actively regulates for national good.
As a regulatory authority, HEA doesn’t just check boxes, we build bridges between policy, academia, and the real-world fight against climate change.
3. Best Government Exhibit. Climate change isn’t an abstract issue in Zambia, it’s an everyday reality. This year, two-thirds of our country’s Agro-ecological zones were hit by drought. Our first panel sets the tone by translating the Show’s global theme of “Adapting to Climate Change” into a distinctly Zambian call to action.
With interactive climate maps, a data-driven vulnerability display, and localised stories of adaptation, our government exhibit highlighted the leadership role of the Ministry of Education through HEA. By rooting global issues in local urgency, we believe our stand represents government responsiveness at its finest.
HEA’s stand at F7 (near ZNBC and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development) has drawn crowds not just for its eco-friendly design and research showcase, but for its clarity of vision which states, “Adapting to climate change begins in the lecture hall, the research lab, and the community field school.”
From public pledge campaigns and student participation to live demos from CBU and UNILUS, every part of the HEA stand reaffirmed one message, education is not just preparation for the future, it is protection for it.
As we await the final results this Saturday and Sunday, we stand confident, hopeful, and deeply proud of the story we’ve told. We showed up. We delivered. And we believe we’ve made the case: Higher education is Zambia’s climate frontier, and HEA is leading the way.
Visit HEA’s stand is located at F7, near ZNBC and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
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