Verdict: Unsupported by available Ministry of Education data
By Charles Mafa
During a campaign rally in Choma, President Hakainde Hichilema credited his administration’s free education policy with bringing “over 2.5 million children into school.”
“The reason why this country is moving forward is because you selected a government through the President, but the President does not work alone. The President cannot go into Parliament to vote for laws, it is the MPs,” he said before citing the employment of 45,000 teachers and “bringing back over 2.5 million children into school.”
The claim is central to one of the UPND government’s flagship policies ahead of Zambia’s August 2026 general election. But do official education statistics support it?
What the data shows
According to the Ministry of Education’s 2025 Education Statistics Bulletin, total enrolment increased from 5,025,614 learners in 2021to6,833,236 learners in 2025.
That is an increase of approximately 1.81 million learners, not 2.5 million.
The same bulletin reports total enrolment in 2025 at 6.83 million learners, including 706,049 in early childhood education, 4.69 million in primary education and 1.43 million in secondary education.
What about the President’s other figure?
President Hichilema also said free education was introduced to benefit “the 2.5 million children currently in school”.
However, the Ministry’s latest statistics put total enrolment at 6.83 million learners, meaning the figure of 2.5 million does not correspond to the number of children currently enrolled in Zambia’s education system.
Could he have been referring to something else?
Possibly. Government officials have at times referred to beneficiaries of free education rather than net enrolment growth. However, the President did not explain how the 2.5 million figure was calculated, and the Education Statistics Bulletin does not show that more than 2.5 million additional learners entered school between 2021 and 2025.
Verdict
The Ministry of Education’s own statistics do not support the claim that the Hichilema administration brought “over 2.5 million children into school.”
Official enrolment figures show an increase of approximately 1.81 million learners between 2021 and 2025. Unless State House or the Ministry of Education provides a different methodology for calculating the figure, the claim remains unsupported by publicly available data.
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