I want to be careful writing about Zambia, because the easy version of this article — international schools are expensive, buy ours instead — is both lazy and unfair to schools doing good work. Lusaka’s Cambridge and international schools have real records and a campus experience we cannot replicate. The honest observation is narrower and, I think, more useful: the country’s economy is distributed and its schooling is not. Copper is on the Copperbelt. Tourism is in the south. Cambridge is in Lusaka.
The Copperbelt problem
Kitwe, Ndola, Chingola, Mufulira, Solwezi: mining houses, engineering contractors, and service companies recruiting from South Africa, India, China, Australia and Europe, alongside a deep local professional class of engineers and metallurgists. It is one of Africa’s great industrial regions and its schooling provision does not reflect that at all. Historically the answer has been boarding — Lusaka, or South Africa — which costs money and, more to the point, sends a thirteen-year-old away from home. Live delivery is the first alternative that is neither.
The subject problem, which is quieter
This one affects families who already have a good school. A regional school with a senior cohort of thirty cannot staff Further Mathematics for four students, or Computer Science for three, and so those subjects quietly disappear from the timetable — usually just as a child discovers they are good at them. It is nobody’s fault; it is arithmetic. But it is precisely the thing a live online group of five solves, and in Zambia it is one of the most common reasons families come to us: the child stays exactly where they are and takes one subject with us.
The southern problem
Livingstone and the Southern Province run tourism, conservation, and agriculture, with lodge and camp staff frequently living outside town where distance decides everything. There is no international provision, and Lusaka is around five hours away. The additional wrinkle is seasonal: in the high season the whole household works, and a timetable that assumes an adult free in the afternoon does not describe those months. Live classes with a complete recorded library do — attend when you can, catch up when you cannot, and the year holds together.
What we actually do about it
Live Cambridge teaching in groups of four to six, delivered anywhere in Zambia identically, at USD 2,160-6,480 a year. Classes land in the Zambian afternoon because we are one hour away in Nairobi. Everything runs in English, so there is no second curriculum to carry. Examinations sit at authorised in-country provision, which exists because Zambian schools have been running Cambridge for years. And the arrangement works either as a full programme or as one or two subjects alongside a school a family is otherwise happy with — which, on the Copperbelt especially, is what most people actually need.
And where the local school is the right answer
A Zambian child settled in a good school, heading toward the national School Certificate and the University of Zambia or the Copperbelt University, does not need us, and I would rather say that than sell around it. Our value here is specific: the fee gap for families priced out of the Cambridge tier, the subjects a small cohort cannot sustain, reach into regions no campus serves, and continuity for families whose work moves them around the region. Where none of those apply, the local school will serve a child well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a Cambridge school on the Copperbelt?+
Provision is far thinner than Lusaka’s and the capital is a long drive or flight away. Live online delivery reaches Kitwe, Ndola, Chingola and Solwezi identically, as a full programme or as individual subjects.
Can our child take one subject only?+
Yes — it is among the most common arrangements in Zambia. The child stays at their school and takes Further Mathematics, Computer Science, or a science with us live, sitting the same Cambridge examination.
Is this cheaper than boarding in South Africa?+
Substantially, and the child stays at home. The qualification is the same; what boarding adds is the campus experience itself, which families weigh differently.
How do class times work?+
Zambia is one hour behind our Nairobi teaching base with no daylight saving either side, so live classes land in the Zambian afternoon all year, with every session recorded.
