For many Zambians living abroad, returning home is an emotional decision driven by the desire to reconnect with family, culture and country.
But while parents may settle back into life in Zambia with relative ease, their children can face a much more complicated journey, particularly when they have to enter the Zambian school system.
For a child who has spent most of their life in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia or another Western country, coming to a Zambian school can represent a dramatic change in educational culture.
The challenge is not necessarily that one system is better than the other. Rather, the child has to adjust to a different way of learning, different expectations of discipline, different relationships between teachers and pupils and, in some cases, a completely different social environment.
This is particularly difficult for children who return to Zambia during their formative years.
In many Western schools, pupils are encouraged to participate actively in lessons, ask questions, express opinions and engage in discussion and independent research. The emphasis is often on developing individual initiative alongside academic achievement.
A child arriving in a conventional Zambian school may encounter a more structured and teacher-directed environment, with considerable emphasis on the syllabus, written work, examinations, discipline and respect for authority.
For a child who has spent years being encouraged to challenge ideas and engage teachers in discussion, the adjustment can initially be confusing.
Even something as simple as asking a teacher why a particular answer is considered correct can be interpreted differently depending on the educational culture.
There is also the question of curriculum.
Children educated abroad may have little exposure to Zambian history, geography, local languages and the country’s civic and cultural traditions.
They may know considerably more about the history and geography of the country in which they were raised than they do about Zambia.
This creates an uncomfortable situation for some parents. They want their children to acquire a stronger connection with Zambia, but the schools that can provide a relatively seamless transition from a Western educational environment are often beyond the financial reach of ordinary families.
Schools such as Baobab College, the International School of Lusaka and Chengelo School in Mkushi, among other institutions offering international or international-style education, can provide curricula and teaching environments that are more familiar to children coming from abroad.
However, the fees associated with such schools can be substantial.
This creates what could be described as the diaspora education dilemma: parents may have the means to bring their children back to Zambia but not necessarily the means to place them in an international school.
Consequently, some families find themselves choosing between an expensive school that minimises the educational shock and a more affordable school where the child may have to make a considerably greater adjustment.
The problem extends beyond the classroom.
A child returning from the diaspora may speak with a different accent, use different expressions, dress differently or have different assumptions about friendships and personal space. Local children may regard the newcomer as privileged or simply as a foreigner, even when the child is technically Zambian.
The returning child can therefore experience a strange contradiction: Zambia is supposed to be home, but school is the place where the child may feel most like an outsider.
Parents should therefore not assume that citizenship automatically translates into cultural familiarity.
A child born to Zambian parents in London, Birmingham, Toronto or New York may carry a Zambian passport and have a Zambian surname, but their lived experience may be fundamentally different from that of a child who has grown up in Lusaka, Kitwe, Ndola or Mkushi.
The answer is not to force returning children to abandon everything they learned abroad. Equally, they should not be expected to remain permanently detached from Zambian culture.
The objective should be integration.
Schools can play an important role by helping returning pupils understand local history, traditions and languages while also recognising the knowledge and experiences they bring from abroad.
Parents, meanwhile, need to prepare children before returning home. This can include introducing them to Zambian history, literature, music, languages and customs and, where possible, allowing them to spend extended periods in Zambia before making a permanent move.
The transition can be particularly difficult for teenagers because they are simultaneously dealing with academic pressure, identity and the need to establish friendships.
There is also an important policy question for Zambia.
As more members of the diaspora consider returning home, should the country’s education system be doing more to accommodate children who have been educated abroad?
The diaspora is frequently encouraged to return, invest, establish businesses and contribute skills to national development.
But successful reintegration requires more than employment opportunities and investment incentives. Families need schools capable of receiving children who have been educated in different systems.
International schools will continue to serve an important purpose, but they cannot be the only answer. Their cost means that they are inaccessible to many Zambian families.
There is therefore an opportunity for mainstream Zambian schools to develop transition programmes for returnee pupils. Such programmes could include additional support in local subjects, language assistance, orientation programmes and counselling to help children understand the expectations of their new environment.
Ultimately, returning to Zambia should not mean that a child has to choose between the country of their upbringing and the country of their parents.
The diaspora child should be able to bring the best of both worlds into the Zambian classroom.
For Zambia, which continues to encourage its citizens abroad to participate in national development, making the education system more accommodating to returning families could become an important part of making the journey home genuinely successful.
By Brighton Mwanza
Picture: African pupils from the diaspora