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Malawi |
EDUCATION
Malawi’s education sector, sometimes called an «engine for development»
has
totally collapsed, and there are no signs of it getting back on track...
With School Certificate Examination pass rates dropping miserably and an average of 600 teacher succumbing to AIDS every year, Malawi’s education system is heading for disaster. The Government instituted a Commission of Inquiry to probe into the causes of the problems dogging the education system. The Commission has just released its findings.
The Report reveals that candidates sitting for the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations are subject to a persistently poor performance. This has exposed a series of deep-rooted education policy disasters that contribute to these mass failures.
President Muluzi to blame
The Commission, headed by veteran educationist Lewis Malunga, lays the blame squarely at the door of President Bakili Muluzi. His election campaign promise of free primary education without sufficient qualified teachers to staff the schools, has proved disastrous for Malawi’s education system. The President’s ambition was to make primary education free for all Malawian children. But while enrolment shot up and schools became overcrowded, the teaching staff did not increase accordingly. Under-staffed, it is little wonder that the education system is now under-motivated!
Presently, the country’s secondary schools need at least 12,000 teachers but there are only 4,968. Of these, only 1,628 are qualified to teach in secondary schools while the rest might do well in primary schools. They were required to teach in secondary schools because of an acute shortage of teachers.
In its 100-page report, Malunga’s Commission points out that free primary education has resulted in schools being inundated with pupils. The Government had anticipated the dramatic increase in primary school enrolment which would eventually lead to more and more pupils in secondary schools. So what did it do? It quickly opened additional secondary schools but these were schools only in name. They had no teachers, no educational material and no buildings. Misguidedly, Muluzi’s government selected primary school teachers for a three-week crash-training course before posting them to secondary schools.
Malunga’s inquiry report notes: «This was a recipe for disaster. The Commissioners would like to believe that the steady drop in pass rates from 1995 onwards, is due to an increase in insufficiently prepared candidates.» Candidates for the MSCE shot up from 7,000 in the early 1990s to 45,416 in 1999. According to the Report, the increase did nothing to enhance teachers’ capabilities. «The increased number of candidates and examination centres, over-stretched the human resources available, to the extent that security, reliability and validity of the MSCE has been compromised,» the report observes.
It goes on to state that a misguided interpretation of the meaning of the word «democracy» has contributed to falling education standards in Malawi. Truancy is on the increase and students have thrown discipline to the winds under the guise of freedom of expression.
The Malunga Report recommends that parents should have more to say when it comes to the education of their children and they should share part of the costs. «If parents contribute towards the cost of educating their children then they will have a vested interest in ensuring the schools are well run, with adequate teaching materials».
The Report comes in the nick of time. In 1999 the MSCE pass rate was just under 30%, while the 2000 results recorded the lowest in history with a 13% pass rate. This year’s results are not much better — a 19.7% pass rate. Educationalists say it will take years for Malawi’s education system to recover because it takes a long time to train a well-qualified teacher.
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