Zambia to introduce Portuguese in the school curriculum

It's pretty easy to understand why Zambia, an English-speaking country, would elect to bring Portuguese into the curriculum when you look at its location in Africa:

Zambia is in red in the middle, and Angola to the west and Mozambique to the east have Portuguese as official languages.

Here's a comparison of the three in terms of economy and population:

Population

Angola - 16.9 million
Zambia - 11.8 million
Mozambique - 21.4 million

Total GDP

Angola - $96 billion
Zambia - $11.4 billion
Mozambique - $8 billion

GDP per capita

Angola - $5,700
Zambia - $940
Mozambique - $400


Just another example of how English's status as a world language means nothing when you're in country X, speak English, and country Y next door with six times the GDP per capita speaks a language less prominent than country X...people in country X will still want to learn language Y to get ahead, regardless of how prominent English is elsewhere in the world.