Last week, I wrote about how state schools in Mfumbeni were struggling to cope with increasing class sizes and a lack of adequate funding for resources. But thousands of community schools around Zambia are providing basic education to hundreds of thousands of children without any state funding at all.

Thirty kilometres away from the main road, a dedicated group of unpaid volunteers have been running Chamwavu Community School since 2005, which caters for 135 pupils from six villages.

Community schools, set up by communities, churches and other faith-based organisations, NGOs and individuals, have been providing education to hundreds of thousands of children in rural areas who are unable to access state schools because of distance or over-enrolment in existing schools. The government estimates that there are more than 3000 operating all around the country, catering for approximately 20 per cent of the total number of children enrolled in basic education.

Community schools range from fully-funded, well resourced establishments supported by NGOs, to entirely unfunded schools like Chamwavu School, run by untrained and unpaid volunteers in unsuitable or half-built structures.

The school is a small redbrick building, with a corrugated roof. There are just two small, dark classrooms to accommodate the 135 pupils, and as there are no chairs or desks, the children sit on the concrete floor. There is a blackboard made from smoothed concrete on one wall, but the school cannot afford chalk at the moment, so all lessons are conducted orally.

The head teacher’s “office” is a tiny room between the classrooms, completely empty except for an old bike which one of the teachers uses to travel to and from work.

“We have no money for resources, and rely on donations of books from the nearest state school, who are already financially stretched themselves,” says Yotamu Phiri, the school’s head teacher.

“At the moment, we have no chalk to write on the blackboard, or spare paper for the children to write on if someone comes to school without their copybook. The community have to raise money to supply these things, but they are very poor. It took 5 weeks to raise 60,000Kw (€9.25) the last time we needed to buy chalks.”

A shortage of resources and materials is not the only challenge facing the school. The closest water source is almost a kilometre away, and there are no toilets or latrines for the children to use, meaning that sanitation is a fundamental problem.

The school has three teachers, all of whom are untrained and unpaid. “Because we work at a community school, we don’t receive a salary from the government. We are given nothing,” says Phiri.

“Sometimes, members of the community come together to help us in our fields, to thank us for the time we spend teaching their children at the school. They know we don’t get paid for what we do, and that our farming suffers because of it.”

Before the school was set up in 2005, the majority of children in the area didn’t receive any education, as the closest state school was located 8km away in Chibambo village. “It was simply too far away for them to walk to every day. Most people could not read or write here, but now these children have a chance to learn,” says Phiri.

Not all parents were enthusiastic about the school at first, however, and it has been a continuing struggle to persuade some of the benefits of providing their children with an education. MK-SAP, an NGO supported by Self Help Africa working with farmers’ groups in the area, helped to sensitise the community and to make people aware of the value of education.

“As there was a history of non-attendance in the area, it took time to convince many members of the community of the value of education, that they should make the effort to send their children to school here,” Phiri explains.

The United Nations School Meals Programme, part of the World Food Programme, was introduced at the school at an early stage. Under the programme, every child receives a bowl of fortified soya porridge at the school every day. The promise of a daily meal has boosted enrolment and promoted regular attendance at the school, and having a full stomach also helps the children to concentrate better.

Because of the lack of resources, the curriculum taught at community schools is usually a compressed version of that covered by the state schools, and the children are not subject to the same assessment procedures. In an attempt to regulate the community schools and improve standards, the Ministry of Education introduced operational guidelines in 2007, which were intended to provide a framework for supporting the community schools in the form of teacher training and funding for basic resources, but the guidelines have not yet been implemented in the majority of cases.

The government guidelines aimed to provide all community schools with at least one trained and paid teacher, and Chamwavu School expects to receive theirs in the next couple of weeks.

“We have high attendance rates here now, especially since the school meal was introduced, but not all children in the area are enrolled,” says Phiri. “Some parents think that this is not a proper school because the teachers are not trained, and that their children are better off spending their time at home where they are useful. We hope more parents will send their children to school here when the new teacher arrives.”