Along with the world movement towards achieving Universal Primary Education,Zambia introduced Free Primary Education in 2002, covering grades 1 to 7.This new policy had put the abolition of PTA fees, which used to play a role in the cost-sharing of education, into effect. It has been contributing to the rapid increase of the enrollment at the primary level. In order to compensate decreased income of the basic schools, the Ministry of Education, Zambia, began to disburse a newly introduced school grant, called Sector Pool Fund, to the basic schools.

The purpose of the paper is primarily to examine the impact of the abolition of the PTA fees in relation to existing partnership between local communities and basic schools in the rural and urban areas. In order to obtain qualitative data, interviews were conducted with headteachers and teachers at five basic schools in the rural and urban areas of Choma district in the southern province, Zambia.

The results seemingly indicate that the abolition of the PTA fees has reduced the parents' burden of cost-sharing of education more in the urban areas than in the rural areas. It is reasonably presumed that the results also show that the tight guidelines on the use of Sector Pool Fund have made the partnership between the local communities and the basic schools less cooperative. As a result, some basic schools, especially in the rural areas, nowadays find it difficult to conduct major rehabilitation, which was once often assisted by the local communities. To regain active support from local communities, it would be suggested that they might be allowed to participate in school management when deciding the use of Sector Pool Fund.