“Zambia has achieved near universal primary school completion levels – national statistics indicate a completion rate of 91.8 per cent at Grade 7. But this masks considerable regional disparities, with the northern region recording 81.3 per cent (72 per cent for female students) and Lusaka a rate of 78.6 per cent. For children in the early years, the coverage of care, learning and education services remains persistently low. Overall, girls continue to be at a disadvantage with a large number of them dropping out in the upper primary and secondary grades, and poorer levels of transition to junior secondary and senior secondary levels…

…Other barriers to children transitioning and completing secondary school include school fees introduced in Grade 8, other costs related to education (such as the cost of not otherwise contributing to household income), and the long distances to many schools. For girls at secondary level, there are also barriers around the lack of menstrual hygiene facilities, the low value placed by some communities on girls’ receiving a secondary education, teenage pregnancy, and child marriage.”
Unicef.org