The perceived barriers to graduate education at the University of Zambia

Abstract

Higher education is acknowledged as a major source for social development

however, it has been seriously neglected in Zambia for decades. The negligence came from the lower investment in higher education and gave rise to many other problems such as the absence of proper policy, low investment and poor infrastructure. By the end of 1990s, more people have started to recognize the importance of higher education in developing countries to fill the development gap. As a result, the situation in Africa country has been slowly changed. This research questions whether the existing higher education system is able to produce graduate level students that meet the needs of the society and its members. It focuses on the barriers people face in pursuing postgraduate education at the University of Zambia (UNZA). The research is mainly based on the interview method targeting students and faculty at UNZA, and descriptive data analysis undertaken to supplement the interviews. Ultimately, this methodology benefited from these the people in different positions who have various insights: administrative personnel of institutions in higher education, applicants, parents who have children going to the university and also to the government officers. The result indicates that institutional constraints are seen differently between students and faculty. Students focus on high tuition fee and expensive educational cost as a main barrier for them to enter graduate school. On the other hand, the faculty saw lack of financial resources as the main institutional problem. Secondly, it was found that curriculum in postgraduate program has the lack of practical values so that people would not see the higher education necessary because the education does not seem to be relevant to their community. Lastly, the quality of education itself is not proven to be good enough to appeal to the people. Consequently, the research found the three factors of institutional constraints, relevance to community and quality of education have consistently been constrained people to pursue graduate education. There has been no systematic approach to solving the problem as of yet.