Who We Are
Zambia Open Community Schools (ZOCS) is an organisation of community schools in Zambia that, since 1992, empowers communities to provide quality basic education to Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs), especially girls and children with disabilities. Premised on the principle that every child has a “right to education”, ZOCS delivers its programme through three strategic pillars to ensure that OVCs have access to quality, equitable and inclusive education in order to brighten their prospects of reaching their fullest potential and significantly contribute to national development.
ZOCS supports over 1000 community schools in 76 districts with an estimated population of 172,680 learners (46, 800 boys and 70,200 girls). The learners are taught by over 2,340 volunteer teachers (936 male and 1, 404 female) who have
dedicated their time to ensuring access to education for all children in their communities. The organization in its work is directed by an Annual Work Plan derived from the ZOCS 2011-2015 Strategic Plan and from communities through Annual General Meetings. The strategic plan reflects the three pillars on which ZOCS builds its approach.
ZOCS joins hands with other civil society
organizations in lobbying and advocating for rights of the child to education especially the girl child and those that are disabled. In the latest Strategic
Plan advocacy is ZOCS major vehicle for achieving sustainable community schools in Zambia. ZOCS is currently networking with other likeminded institutions including government line ministries. Its community school memberships and affiliations gives ZOCS a unique position of concentrating efforts on issues that matter most to the OVC.
ZOCS conducts training for Parent Community School Committee (PCSC) and volunteer teachers and provides technical support to community school management especially in resource mobilization. Training of teachers is very critical as
government is not in a position to provide teachers in all community schools. Capacity building of community school management includes setting up internal control systems and supporting their operationalization within the community
school system.
ZOCS provides revolving funds to community schools, assisting them in ensuring financial sustainability through effective income generating ventures, enterprise development and implementation. Working with community schools, ZOCS facilitates community project planning and implementation to support the schools
In providing lessons and feedback from project implementation, ZOCS monitoring and evaluation focuses on sharing lessons not only for the individual community schools but also for the general community. ZOCS has developed some competence for project monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment using indicators developed in its strategic plan. Lesson learning is cardinal in the whole process hence the need for a process of sharing through case studies, exchange visits
and integrated feedback.
Resource Mobilization has become an integral part of Zocs programming and future financial forecasting. The economic landscape is getting more and more competitive as increasing number of Civil Society Organization (CSO) complete for
funding from the same Donors. To compete favorably, Zocs established a Research and Resource Mobilization department mandated to develop proposals and meaningfully engage current and potential partners.
ZOCS supported 33 1 Community Schools in Lusaka, Central and Southern Provinces to ensure provision of school feeding for learners. For sustainability purposes, ZOCS provided farming inputs to 250 Community Schools to support school feeding.
ZOCS launched a “Donate a book campaign” to raise resources for books for vulnerable children. This campaign was aimed at addressing some of the gaps that have been noted since the reintroduction of the free education policy where many learners attend classes but do not have school supplies which in turn affect their performance and self-esteem, and if not addressed may be a reason why some children drop out of school. So far, ZOCS has received a pledge of up to 30,000 books which are expected to be fulfilled this year, 2023
As of 2022 ZOCS provided bursary support to 2078 (1304 girls; 773 boys) learners at Secondary School level with a completion rate of 99%. The support was towards the payment of school related fees and school requisites such as shoes, books, uniforms, school bags, calculators, solar study lamps and sanitary towels for girls.
Our Partners
