St. Edmund's Secondary School
St. Edmund’s Secondary School was established in 1964 and draws its students from the local community around Mazabuka town.
The Christian Brothers ran the school until 1986 when, with reforms in the education sector, a lay teacher was appointed to head it. However, the Christian Brothers still remain deeply involved. Many of the students come from the local sugarcane plantation where their parents serve as labourers to cut cane while others come from the neighbouring town and its surroundings. Until the 1980s, the school had boarding facilities and this meant higher fees. The performance standards in national exams were also high, a factor which attracted many parents to send their children from as far as Lusaka (over 75 kilometres from Mazabuka) to attend. Children from the local community were increasingly marginalised in admission. When the trend was noted, the Christian Brothers sought to convert the school into a day school, thereby increasing its access by children from low-income families and reducing the catchment area to Mazabuka. Currently, the school has twenty-one (21) classes. The former dormitories are under rehabilitation to convert them into classrooms, a measure that is expected to increase access further through increased number of classrooms. The school has thirty-five (35) members of teaching staff who are university graduates and nine (9) support staff.
The school has built a reputation for providing good quality education, performing highly in national exams, and has made good contributions to education in the country because of its age and the number of students who have graduated from it over the years. Nearly 30% of the teachers currently teaching at St. Edmund’s are alumni of the school. Other professionals in the neighbouring schools, both primary and secondary, and in the Mazabuka Municipal Council are former students of St. Edmund’s. At the time of the evaluation, the school administration was working together with past students of the school to form an Old Boys Association.
