Is Kabwe Ready for the Future of Education?

 

The AI Classroom Has Arrived in Zambia — But Is Kabwe Ready?

A student in Kabwe can now ask an artificial intelligence chatbot to explain algebra, rewrite an essay, generate revision questions or summarise a difficult science topic in seconds.

The student may never have entered a university library. The school may not have enough textbooks. The computer laboratory may have limited equipment. Internet access may be expensive or unreliable.

Yet the machine in the student's hand can suddenly open a door to an enormous world of information.

This is the paradox at the centre of Zambia's AI education story.

The technology is moving faster than the classroom.

Across the world, students are already experimenting with artificial intelligence. The 2024 International Student Barometer data discussed by ICEF Monitor found that 57% of enrolled students surveyed used AI tools, while 26% said they used them daily. Among international students at European institutions, reported usage was even higher.

The figures do not represent every student in Zambia, and they should not be treated as a national Zambian survey. But they reveal the direction in which education is moving.

The question for Zambia is no longer whether students will encounter AI.

They already have.

The harder question is whether the education system will teach them how to use it wisely.

The Student With a Smartphone Has Entered a New Classroom

For decades, access to educational opportunity was strongly connected to physical resources.

A student who had textbooks, a good library, experienced teachers and additional learning materials had advantages over another student who had none of these things.

The smartphone has complicated that equation.

A relatively inexpensive device can now connect a learner to online courses, educational videos, digital libraries, open educational resources and AI-powered learning tools.

That possibility matters enormously in a country such as Zambia, where educational access remains uneven.

The country's 2025 National Education Policy acknowledges significant digital challenges. It reports that only 6.8% of learners and 33% of teachers had received formal ICT training, while noting that adoption of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and big data remains limited.

Those numbers should force a serious conversation.

It is one thing to give a young person access to an AI application.

It is another thing entirely to give that young person the knowledge required to understand what the machine is doing.

Kabwe's AI Question Is Bigger Than ChatGPT

Walk through the educational landscape of a city such as Kabwe and the AI question quickly becomes less glamorous.

It becomes about electricity.

It becomes about data bundles.

It becomes about smartphones.

It becomes about computer laboratories.

It becomes about teachers who may themselves be learning how these technologies work.

It becomes about whether a child from a low-income household can participate in the same digital future as a child whose parents can afford constant internet access.

This is where Zambia's AI debate needs to move beyond excitement about technology.

The danger is creating a new educational divide.

The first digital divide was largely about who had access to computers and the internet.

The emerging AI divide could be about something more complicated: who has access to AI, who knows how to use it, who can verify its answers and who can use it creatively to improve their opportunities.

UNESCO has warned that AI can deepen existing inequalities if access, skills, safety and governance are not addressed. It estimates that around 2.6 billion people globally still lacked internet access in 2024.

For Zambia, that warning is particularly relevant.

When AI Becomes the Homework Helper

Imagine a Grade 12 learner struggling with simultaneous equations.

Instead of waiting until the next school day, the learner can ask an AI system to explain the problem step by step.

That can be enormously useful.

But now imagine the same learner copying the solution into an exercise book without understanding why the answer is correct.

The technology has solved the problem.

The student has not learned how to solve it.

That distinction could define the educational battle of the AI era.

AI can explain concepts, generate practice questions and offer alternative explanations. But students still need teachers, textbooks, discussion, experimentation and independent thinking.

UNESCO's AI education work emphasises a human-centred approach and has developed competency frameworks aimed at helping students become responsible users and co-creators of AI rather than simply passive consumers.

For Zambia, this means AI literacy should not simply mean teaching students which buttons to press.

It should mean teaching them how to question the machine.

What Happens When the Machine Is Wrong?

There is another problem that deserves greater attention.

AI can sound confident even when its information is inaccurate.

A student who has not developed strong research and critical-thinking skills may struggle to recognise the difference between a well-supported answer and a convincing mistake.

This is particularly important when students use AI for history, science, literature, health information or local knowledge.

The machine does not automatically understand Zambia.

It may not understand Kabwe.

It may not understand the cultural meaning of a Bemba proverb, a Tonga expression, a Lozi tradition or a local historical event unless relevant information exists within the material from which the system has learned.

UNESCO highlighted this broader African-language challenge in 2026, noting that AI systems trained predominantly on dominant-language content can perform less effectively with African languages and culturally specific material.

That raises an important question for Zambian education:

Who is teaching the machines about Zambia?

Open Learning Could Become More Important

This is where OpenLearnZambia and similar open-learning initiatives have a potentially meaningful role. The future should not be about replacing teachers with AI. It should be about connecting students to more learning opportunities.

A learner can use open educational resources to study a subject, consult an AI tool to explore a difficult concept, return to authoritative educational material to verify the explanation and then discuss the subject with a teacher or fellow students.

That creates a learning cycle rather than a shortcut.

For a student in Kabwe, open learning can help turn the internet from a place primarily used for entertainment and social media into a genuine educational resource.

But that transformation requires digital literacy. A connected student is not necessarily an educated digital citizen.

The Teacher Cannot Be Left Behind

There is a tendency to talk about AI as if students are the only people who need to adapt.

That is a mistake.

Teachers need support too.

A teacher who has never received meaningful ICT or AI training cannot reasonably be expected to guide hundreds of students through an AI-powered educational environment without support.

Zambia's National Education Policy recognises the shortage of digital skills and calls for stronger digital capacity, infrastructure and an inclusive education-sector digitalisation strategy.

UNESCO is also supporting a digital-skills initiative in Zambia that aims to strengthen teachers' and learners' digital capacity through a hub-school model, including digital pedagogy training, smart classrooms and locally relevant learning content.

The challenge is scale.

One pilot school cannot transform an entire country.

The real test will be whether successful approaches can eventually reach ordinary schools, including those far from Lusaka and other major urban centres.

Zambia Must Build, Not Merely Consume

There is another opportunity hidden inside the AI revolution. Zambian students should not only become users of technology.

They should become creators.

The child learning to use AI today could become tomorrow's software developer, teacher, researcher, entrepreneur, engineer, journalist, artist or technology founder.

But that future requires more than access to chatbots.

It requires mathematics.

It requires science.

It requires reading.

It requires writing.

It requires creativity.

It requires problem-solving.

It requires teachers who understand technology and students who understand its limitations.

Zambia's wider development plans already identify science, technology, innovation, STEM and digital skills as important components of national development. UNESCO's assessment of Zambia's education technology landscape similarly points to national ambitions around digital literacy, ICT infrastructure and STEM development.

The opportunity is therefore not simply to teach young people how to use AI.

It is to use the AI moment to strengthen the entire culture of learning.

The Real Question Facing Kabwe

Perhaps the most important question is not whether a student in Kabwe has used ChatGPT. The more important question is whether that student understands what responsible AI use means.

Can they distinguish fact from fiction?

Can they identify an unreliable answer?

Can they conduct independent research?

Can they write without asking a machine to do everything?

Can they use technology without losing their own voice?

Can they create something that reflects their community, culture and experiences?

And perhaps most importantly, can they use AI to expand their imagination rather than shrink it?

These questions will determine whether artificial intelligence becomes an educational equaliser or another source of inequality.

The Future Cannot Be Imported

Zambia should learn from countries that are already developing AI education policies and frameworks. But it cannot simply copy another country's model. The AI classroom in London is not necessarily the AI classroom in Kabwe.

The needs are different.

The infrastructure is different.

The languages are different.

The economic realities are different.

The cultural context is different.

The solutions must therefore be locally informed.

That means involving teachers, students, parents, universities, technology companies, policymakers and communities in the conversation.

It means investing in connectivity and devices, but also in teacher training.

It means promoting digital literacy, but also protecting student privacy.

It means encouraging innovation while establishing safeguards.

And it means ensuring that children from disadvantaged communities are not left watching the AI revolution through somebody else's smartphone.

The Machine Is Not the Future. The Student Is.

There is a temptation to look at artificial intelligence and see a machine that will determine the future of education.

Perhaps we should look at it differently.

The real future is the child sitting in a Zambian classroom.

The teenager revising for Grade 12 examinations.

The teacher preparing tomorrow's lesson.

The university student researching a dissertation.

The young entrepreneur trying to turn an idea into a business.

AI is simply one of the tools they may have available.

Whether that tool becomes a ladder or a crutch will depend on how we teach the next generation to use it.

Kabwe does not need students who can merely ask machines questions.

Zambia needs students who can ask better questions than the machines can answer.

That is where education still has the advantage.

And that is where the real AI revolution in Zambia should begin.

Rodgers Mangwela