Source: The Mail & Guardian
Rwanda's laptop revolution
PETER BEAUMONT | KIGALI, RWANDA - Mar 28 2010 06:44
Two small boys are standing hunched outside the window of the Groupe Scholaire Kagugu school in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, a cluster of low, shed-like buildings set around a central yard. A sudden tropical downpour is rattling the frame. Heavy droplets stick to the pane, distorting the faces pressed against the glass.
The taller of the boys pulls a tan jacket over his head. But the drenching does not discourage them. Their eyes don't shift. What they want to see, so desperately, is inside the classroom.
It's an object 10 inches square, green, white and rubberised, inscribed with the logo of an X and a filled-in O. There are rows of them: scaled-down laptops in front of every pupil, commanding the silent, rapt attention of the sitting children who have been given them from a cardboard box.
Many of these children have never touched a computer of any kind before; most, indeed, have never seen one. But when these introductory classes are finished, the children will be allowed to take these laptops to their homes, many of which have no television or phone connections. Or even electricity.
The class concludes. Freed from the requirement to sit , the children are all suddenly on their feet handling the computers in the way that seems most natural to them; standing and propping them on chests or stomachs. Prodding with a single hand. Not wanting to give them up.
They laugh and film each other with the laptop cameras or gather in small groups in the dusty yard outside to watch each other playing games. Others crowd around the largely American instructors to bombard them with questions.
'I love using it'
I see the same scene in several schools. When I talk to them, the Rwandan children are as shy as children anywhere when addressed by a strange adult. When they do answer it is with a kind of quiet wonder. "I love using it," says Oliver Niyomwungeri, aged 12. "I never saw one of these before. I'm so excited to take it home when we're allowed. I want to do my homework on it. And I want to teach my younger sister how to use it."
These laptops, the first of 100 000 that the government intends should be given to every Rwandan child between the ages of nine and 12, represent a kind of revolution. One that envisages not only the transformation of an impoverished agrarian society into one of the most advanced in Africa, but also sees technology as a tool that will help exorcise the country's lingering ghosts. The genocide that took place in this country in 1994 deprived many of these children of uncles, aunts, grandparents. During 100 days of killing, 800 000 minority ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in service of so-called "Hutu Power".
I examine the computer closely the next day. It is being turned over in the large hands of David Cavallo in a coffee shop in a modern mall in Kigali. Cavallo is project director and "learning architect" for One Laptop Per Child; the organisation that developed and supplies the computers. He is an enthusiastic and youthful 58, with a tangled mop of salt-and-pepper hair, a boxer's nose and grizzled beard.
CONTINUES BELOW
Rwanda is not the first country to have been supplied with the XO machines by One Laptop Per Child (1,4-million have been delivered to children in 35 countries including Haiti, Afghanistan, Brazil and Uruguay), but it does present one of the most challenging projects that the organisation has yet undertaken. For Cavallo, it is also one of the most exciting.
The organisation's mission statement -- to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children via a "rugged low-cost, low-power laptop" -- might have had Rwanda specifically in mind. Its shortages of electricity and lower internet connectivity are driving One Laptop Per Child to develop ever cheaper and tougher machines with ever lower power consumption. The next generation of computers will be usable even where there is no mains power at all. And at the heart of their programme is the idea of "joyful, playful and innovatory" learning.
Vaccinating a society
Over the past 10 years technology has helped other very poor societies -- via the wind-up light or through the widespread adoption in Africa, in particular, of cellphones, even in the remotest communities -- but this project is of a different order. One specific aim is to encourage social cohesion. The Rwandan government particularly wants to encourage rapid economic development by educating these children to be computer-literate -- but there is also a notion that these laptops might help to vaccinate a society still in painful recovery from its genocidal past by opening up the rest of the world to a new generation.
Cavallo talks about Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist and philosopher who believed education to be "capable of saving our societies from possible [violent] collapse". He also talks of the American philosopher John Dewey, one of his heroes, who believed that only science could reliably further human good. It is an ex-student of Piaget's, Seymour Papert (a brilliant mathematician and education and technology theorist) who is the inspiration for the XO. A political refugee from apartheid South Africa, Papert fled to England, France and finally America where he became one of the founders of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston (MIT).
Later Cavallo emails me a photograph. It is a black and white image from 1967. A long-haired and bearded Papert is bending over a mechanical clear plastic "turtle" controlled by a computer language written for children of his own devising.This "turtle," which children could command to draw -- on paper at first and later on a video screen -- was the first of Papert's Children's Machines that four decades later would morph into the XO.
What Papert has long argued is that children, in all societies, can master computing, not just their simple operation but also the writing of computer code as well. That learning process, he believed, equipped children not only for understanding computers but could transform entirely how individuals learn throughout their lives, inside and outside the classroom and, therefore, alter societies. He is a longstanding enemy of what he sees as the tyranny of formal education systems which he believes equip children only to master set syllabuses. Put simply, Papert believes that computers can enable children to learn how to learn for themselves through playful problem-solving and that this will lead to their becoming better-rounded human beings.
One of those inspired by what Papert had to say was Nicholas Negroponte -- brother of John, George Bush's controversial director of national intelligence -- a student and later colleague of Papert at MIT, who would become the founder and driving force behind One Laptop Per Child.
'Techno-utopianism'
Although he is a wealthy pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, an investor in technological start-ups and sometime predictor of the future through his writings on the benefits of technology to humankind, it has, however, been One Laptop Per Child that has become Negroponte's most ambitious project. He is taking Papert's ideas and making them reality, applying himself to his dream of what has been referred to as "techno-utopianism" -- the belief that science and technology can bring about profound beneficial social change.
Indeed in a lecture by Negroponte from 2006, describing his vision for One Laptop Per Child, he declared that education, delivered in the context of the XO, is potentially the "solution to [the problems of] poverty, peace and the environment".
David Cavallo, a former student of Papert and a colleague of Negroponte, has taken a leave of absence from MIT to crisscross the globe with the XO, introducing it to the world's most impoverished children. The son of an Italian anarchist who fled his home in World War II, his own journey to Rwanda from Ohio, where he grew up, has been guided by a similar radicalism to his father's, one that saw him drawn as a student to the University of California's Berkeley campus, attracted by its history of protest. But anger, says Cavallo, was not enough. What he wanted were practical solutions that changed the world, not rhetoric that simply described how bad it was. It was a need that would lead him eventually to be part of One Laptop and to settle with his family in Kigali.
He hands me one of the computers. A little larger than a box of chocolates, it is one of the first 100 000 XOs destined for distribution around the country by a government that has bought them at a cost of $181 each. The next generation will be a plastic-coated tablet. Indestructible, it is hoped. Costing less than $100.
The keyboard is small for my fingers but it was never intended for an adult. The desktop appears as an unfamiliar cartwheel of programmes represented by child-friendly icons. Cavallo flips it over, converting it at once into a games console.
Symbol of ambition
In a landlocked and resource-poor country, you can appreciate why the laptop represents one of the most potent symbols of Rwanda's ambition to turn itself into a knowledge-based economy. The government hopes to train 50 000 computer programmers within the next decade, a scheme that is being developed in parallel with other large technology projects whose aim is not to catch up with neighbours such as Kenya, but to leapfrog them within a generation. A wireless broadband system is planned for Kigali -- a city-wide umbrella that would convert the capital into a huge hot spot. The rest of the mountainous country is being crisscrossed by a fibre-optic cable network for broadband access, which will first establish connection to regional hubs and then spread out to the smaller towns and villages.
Kigali these days is a place of fresh-minted neighbourhoods and tidy streets, polished ministries and regulated traffic. Municipal workers clean gullies and hack away at intrusive vegetation. Plastic bags are banned. The wearing of seatbelts is strictly and expensively enforced. But the optimistic billboards placed by the government, the glowing write-ups delivered by visiting reporters and politicians keen to polish the country's success, still struggle to disguise its problems. Genocide survivors continue to be murdered in dozens every year -- one Rwandan explains to me that the killers seek to eradicate the human reminder of what happened and the their own guilt by killing again.
The authoritarian president, Paul Kagame -- once embraced by president Bill Clinton as an exemplar of Africa's new leadership -- stands accused by human rights organisations of suppressing opposition politics and parties, most commonly by accusing them of harbouring ideological sympathies with the genocidaires. In recent weeks, too, a series of unexplained grenade attacks have rocked the capital .
Most Rwandans, when they do talk of the past and what it means today, say that while they can live and work together for the sake of peace, they cannot forget.
Mass murder
I take a drive out of Kigali one day with Samuel Dusengiyumva, a 28-year-old consultant with One Laptop Per Child. He has offered to drive me to the genocide memorial in Nyamata, a church where 10 000 Rwandans were blasted with grenades then hacked to death in April 1994. He talks about what schooling was like before the genocide and after; how lack of education contributed to mass murder.
A father of one with a laid-back manner and an acute intelligence, Sam talks about the sense of loss that carries on into a new generation. "I have a friend. His son asks why he does not have any uncles like some of the other children at the school ..." His white Corolla takes us out of Kigali into a landscape of small, neat farms growing bananas, maize, sorgham and cassava. Later we cross the floodplain of the looping Nyabarango river, where the drenched fields of sugar cane are punctuated by eucalyptus and brightly flowering trees.
A Tutsi, orphaned during the mass slaughter, the first part of Sam's schooling in the time before the genocide was in the hugely discriminatory ethnic quota system that made only 15% of secondary school places available for Tutsis regardless of merit. After the genocide he continued his studies in a school system broken by the inheritance of mass murder.
He tells me the story of how his father, a Baptist pastor, was killed. "He was caught at a road block. They asked for his ID. When he said no, they said, it doesn't matter now. We know. Before they killed him he asked them to let him to pray. He prayed in French at first but at the end he prayed in Kinyarwanda. He said: 'God, you have been with me in difficult times and now you are permitting me to die. But I ask you this: when in the years to come these men who will kill me ask for forgiveness, forgive them.' Then he was killed."
'I can't delete what happened'
This account of what happened was given by the killers during their trial. Later he says: "I can't delete what happened. I am not like a computer. I can't change the fact that I have no parents and that my son has no grandparents. It cannot be wiped out."
Now a law graduate, Sam worked with the tribal reconciliation courts hearing allegations of genocidal acts. He worked too with the ministry of education before joining One Laptop Per Child. Like David Cavallo, he is a firm believer in what the XO can do, in particular its promise for opening up a society that was once lethally closed. Sam pauses for a moment and continues passionately: "You know the problem with having a poor education is that you are not given the faculties to cross-check information, not given access to information. Our society, before the genocide, was not open. Now I can go on the internet. I can check what I am being told. I can make my own analysis.
"I remember a text that I learned at school. It said you go to school to learn how to learn. If you can enable people in society ... with computers ... you release the human potential. You can go beyond."
We pull up outside the church turned memorial and enter among pews heaped with the clothing of the long-ago slaughtered. The building's roof is a starscape of punctured holes left 15 years ago by grenade fragments that still let in the light. A carpet of clothes recovered from bodies thrown in the latrines lies like a frozen flow of lava.
'Teaching aid'
Leaving the nave, with its still bloodstained altar cloth, we descend into a cool cellar where skulls and long leg bones are arranged neatly on shelves, the former like cantaloupes on a grocer's shelf. Except that on the pale cranial plates there are slashes made by machetes.
"Some of these were children. They wanted to be footballers. To go into space. Their dreams were ended here. They are now ... just like a kind of teaching aid." Sam says the last words bitterly.
Arriving with Cavallo back at the Groupe Scholaire Kagugu, I find the children working on their projects. A teacher calls a handful to the front to show what they have done. They display presentations on protecting the environment, the forest ecosystem, health. Afterwards a few sit down and let me see what they have been working on. There are projects about the space shuttle with downloaded pictures of a launch, simple animations and slide shows. Impressive graphics too, given how little experience they have had using the machines.
Cavallo tells me of a child he encountered in Uruguay where One Laptop Per Child supplied XOs to every schoolchild in its biggest scheme to date. "This kid took one home. When they came back they'd filmed one of their cows giving birth and turned it into their project. That is what is so incredible. They work out for themselves what they want to do with the computer."
Cavallo and One Laptop Per Child are cautious about how they present themselves. One day he describes to me an advertising campaign that they rejected. It is one that the Rwandan government might have liked, but it jarred with Papert's ideals. "It was this Hollywood idea. The hero comes in. Does everything. That's what we rejected. It showed a Nobel prizewinner then wound back 20 years to the XO. But it is not what we're about. We are about teachers and nurses."
A cohesive society
In his office on the top floor of his ministry Charles Murigande, Rwanda's education minister is talking about the economic potential offered by his country's embracing of technology. After a while he changes tack from the politician's hard selling of Kagame's Vision 2020 programme that would see Rwanda reimagined as an offshore technology hub to compete with Asia. Instead, he talks about connecting Rwanda with the world; how it will change Rwanda's people; perhaps even protect them.
"I believe that this will help us build a more cohesive society," he explains carefully. "We cannot disguise that terrible things happened here. But it has allowed us to reflect on who we are and who we want to be. To ensure these things never occur again.
"If the country is a closed society -- as it once was -- thinking about its Hutu-ness and Tutsi-ness, its smallness, it would not take long to recreate conditions for a new genocide. Being a connected part of the world helps build ramparts against that risk."
This idea, of Rwanda looking outwards rather than inward, is not simply a hoped-for by-product of the project but is as specific to it as teaching children to write simple computer code. Modules on health education and environmental protection are integral to the programme as is the introduction of children to the idea that they have human rights, that it is their right to have a proper education.
Chris Plutte works for Search for Common Ground, an organisation specialising in conflict resolution and reconciliation. He tells me about a proposal he has in for funding to support the development of a game written specially for the XO. "We see in One Laptop Per Child the potential for peace-building through gaming in primary schools," he says. It will be part of a genre of "serious gaming" programs that encourage players to solve conflict problems; where the gamers' acts have consequences for the outcome.
"Rwanda is a very reserved society. The thing about gaming is that it is very personal. You can play it by yourself -- make choices that show benefits or consequences. Play it out multiple times to see the different outcomes. It is an idea I came to David [Cavallo] with six months ago. If we get the go ahead from our backers we would hope to get the game ready in 12 to 18 months."
Not everyone, though, is so enthusiastic about the potential for One Laptop Per Child in Rwanda; two of the larger government-to-government donors, I am told, have informed the Rwandans that money would be better spent on training teachers rather than personal computers.
Others -- both in Rwanda and outside -- have criticised the machine itself, complaining that the operating system is too slow and that it is more expensive than intended. There are those who have argued that rather than developing their own programs, the project would have benefited from using a commercially available one such as Windows. (After long negotiations with Microsoft, Windows will be available on future models).
Cavallo dismisses some of the complaints but openly admits to having concerns himself. The current model, he concedes, uses more power than they ideally would like, not least because in rural areas the XOs will need to be charged by solar power. And in a country where electricity hook-up is around 6%, and email connectivity equally challenging, the speed of the introduction of the laptops is likely to outpace the government's promised infrastructure improvements.
The criticism, however, is counter-balanced by the childrens' reactions as the first laptops are introduced into Rwanda's schools. I hear stories of children from the Institute Scholaire Kagugu walking for four hours in the heat of summer to take part in activities at a club run by Cavallo and his colleagues.
I am reminded too of something that education minister Charles Murigande told me: his belief that perhaps the laptops could inoculate against the past. "But you know, the thing about vaccines, you don't know that they have really worked for a long time. Until you have passed your life without getting the disease."
Most of all I remain struck by the words of 12-year-old Oliver Niyomwungeri. "This is what I've done ," he had said proudly showing me his work on the computer. "It's about forest protection. I wrote: 'The Forest Environment' in blue letters. Then it says: 'The forest is helpful to human beings. We shouldn't cut them down.'" I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up. "A doctor," he replies seriously.
This, David Cavallo would say, is what One Laptop Per Child is all about.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
MY POINT OF VIEW: Turning to teachers' welfare | Fletcher Simwaka
Source: The BNL Times
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Recent media reports on delayed salaries of teachers don’t make for good reading. In fact they have a potential of throwing our currently picking education standards into hopelessness.
It is the situation that begs the question: Are we as a nation serious about the welfare of teachers? Should we be thinking that our education can make tremendous progress with these demotivating reports of teachers’ salaries?
Admittedly, various stakeholders have been crying foul about the education standards in the country. Fears of a nation producing poorly qualified personnel were rife in the country.
Words of hope, however, echoed across the country when president Bingu wa Mutharika said his government would invest in education. Mutharika himself emphasises the point in various graduation ceremonies that no nation has developed without investment in sound human capital. By investment, it goes without saying that the president meant sound education ought to be the way to go.
That isn’t all. Mutharika’s administration has made tremendous strides in the education sectors. Many schools in sorry sights are being renovated, with many new ones being built. This is not to talk of the last year’s closure of private secondary schools deemed below par. These are wonderful developments really. And just recently, the nation was told government would open a Teachers Training Centres (TTC) in Mangochi.
While all these efforts need to be applauded, the welfare of teachers still remains the stumbling block in the nation’s quest to attain quality education. And as some stakeholders in the education sector have put it, the last month’s salaries delay for teachers is a very worrisome situation for this country.
Already, numerous are the complaints of dwindling standards of education in Malawi, with scores and scores of qualified teachers leaving the education sector for satisfactory working environment elsewhere.
For instance, Chancellor College and Domasi College have been training teachers for a long time, yet there is still a limited number of qualified teachers in secondary schools. Why? Most of these teachers end up employing their knowledge in other government departments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector.
Yes, one would be excused to argue those teaches go there in search of hefty packages. However, much of this habit, it is true, is orchestrated by the suffocating environment in the teaching profession.
Most teachers in community day secondary schools put up in very poor houses not befitting the status of a teacher. The houses don’t have electricity and some houses even reach the extent of leaking during the rainy season.
And now, the delay of salaries for teachers makes the situation all the more hopeless. And the result of all this could be what Link for Education Governance Andrew Usi recently pointed out. “Such hardships teachers face may lead to low productivity while affecting the results of examinations at national level.”
No one would love to work in a bad environment. Surely every human being quests for better life and teachers are no exception. Just recently government discovered that most teachers were engaging in part time- lessons. The lessons were banned, of course, which was a good development.
However, government should also have realised that those part-time lessons were meant to augment the miserable package the teachers are getting. As such, government should have been now combing for ways of motivating teachers who, if truth be told, are the back bone of our quality human resource.
Building various secondary schools, we know, is one such welcome step. More has to be done. Students being trained as teachers in various institutions need to be motivated well in advance by giving the teachers their monthly salaries timely. Really, teachers’ woes are, by all means, the nation’s woes.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Recent media reports on delayed salaries of teachers don’t make for good reading. In fact they have a potential of throwing our currently picking education standards into hopelessness.
It is the situation that begs the question: Are we as a nation serious about the welfare of teachers? Should we be thinking that our education can make tremendous progress with these demotivating reports of teachers’ salaries?
Admittedly, various stakeholders have been crying foul about the education standards in the country. Fears of a nation producing poorly qualified personnel were rife in the country.
Words of hope, however, echoed across the country when president Bingu wa Mutharika said his government would invest in education. Mutharika himself emphasises the point in various graduation ceremonies that no nation has developed without investment in sound human capital. By investment, it goes without saying that the president meant sound education ought to be the way to go.
That isn’t all. Mutharika’s administration has made tremendous strides in the education sectors. Many schools in sorry sights are being renovated, with many new ones being built. This is not to talk of the last year’s closure of private secondary schools deemed below par. These are wonderful developments really. And just recently, the nation was told government would open a Teachers Training Centres (TTC) in Mangochi.
While all these efforts need to be applauded, the welfare of teachers still remains the stumbling block in the nation’s quest to attain quality education. And as some stakeholders in the education sector have put it, the last month’s salaries delay for teachers is a very worrisome situation for this country.
Already, numerous are the complaints of dwindling standards of education in Malawi, with scores and scores of qualified teachers leaving the education sector for satisfactory working environment elsewhere.
For instance, Chancellor College and Domasi College have been training teachers for a long time, yet there is still a limited number of qualified teachers in secondary schools. Why? Most of these teachers end up employing their knowledge in other government departments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector.
Yes, one would be excused to argue those teaches go there in search of hefty packages. However, much of this habit, it is true, is orchestrated by the suffocating environment in the teaching profession.
Most teachers in community day secondary schools put up in very poor houses not befitting the status of a teacher. The houses don’t have electricity and some houses even reach the extent of leaking during the rainy season.
And now, the delay of salaries for teachers makes the situation all the more hopeless. And the result of all this could be what Link for Education Governance Andrew Usi recently pointed out. “Such hardships teachers face may lead to low productivity while affecting the results of examinations at national level.”
No one would love to work in a bad environment. Surely every human being quests for better life and teachers are no exception. Just recently government discovered that most teachers were engaging in part time- lessons. The lessons were banned, of course, which was a good development.
However, government should also have realised that those part-time lessons were meant to augment the miserable package the teachers are getting. As such, government should have been now combing for ways of motivating teachers who, if truth be told, are the back bone of our quality human resource.
Building various secondary schools, we know, is one such welcome step. More has to be done. Students being trained as teachers in various institutions need to be motivated well in advance by giving the teachers their monthly salaries timely. Really, teachers’ woes are, by all means, the nation’s woes.
Linking toilets with girl education | Mike Chipalasa
source: The BNL Times
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Stop at Msanza Junior Primary School in Mchinji, you get moving stories of how the existence of toilets and sanitation structures at the school is doing magic on girl education.
Although the school lacks adequate school blocks to cater for its four classes but one thing the pupils are proud of is the presence of toilet facilities at the school.
At the 6-year-old school, both boys and girls have their own permanent toilets. The same case applies to their teachers.
In the middle of the school premises, is a borehole offering clean water, and was drilled with assistance from United Nations Children Fund (Unicef).
Until the toilets and sanitation facilities were fixed, there was prolonged absenteeism among pupils due to lack of toilets, school authorities said.
For the elder girls, it was even more difficult for them to go to the school at the time they were menstruating.
This time, the enrolment for the girl-child has soared at the school because girls now feel comfortable to attend a school where there are toilets and water resources.
Although the picture looks better at Msanza regarding toilets, it is however pathetic in other public primary school across the country.
Currently, government is stepping up efforts to ensure proper sanitation for all the 5, 600 primary schools in the country, singling out the need to refurbish over 4,000 primary school if efforts to retain pupils in school are to bear fruits.
In the drive, the Ministry of Education says it badly needs US$36.8 million (about K5.6 billion) to bridge the gap of proper sanitary and hygienic standards in the country.
The ministry says anything less than the stated amount undermines efforts to protect children from disease and hinders their ability to develop to their fullest potential.
Director of Basic Education, McKnight Kalanda told journalists in Lilongwe last week that his ministry wants schools to have portable water, proper sanitation and hygienic standards but this was possible if partners helped to bridge the existing gap.
“We want you journalists to help us spread the message so that we can fill the gap,” appealed Kalanda, just before a media tour to some selected primary schools as one way of appreciating the extent of poor sanitation in schools.
The ministry, with funding from Unicef, conducted the National School WASH Assessment in 2008 covering 5, 379 schools to analyse issues of water, sanitation and hygiene in primary schools.
The report dated May 2009, which will be launched today in Lilongwe, gives a sorry picture about sanitation and hygiene standards in schools requiring urgent attention.
It says while 81 percent of schools use a protected water source, only 23 percent have acceptable sanitation and only four percent provide hand-washing facilities with soap.
At the cost of US$36.8 million, the ministry says it wants to construct about 1,000 boreholes, more than 8,000 hand-washing facilities and 37,000 latrines in more than 4,000 schools to overturn the situation.
“I would, therefore, like to invite our bilateral partners, United Nations agencies, local and international Non-Governmental Organisations, and the private sector to study this report and see how and where they can assist in providing water, sanitation, and hygiene to the 3.6million children who attend our schools,” Secretary for Education Bernard Sande is quoted as saying in the report’s preface.
The report noted that from the expected cost of US$36.8 million, US$ 8,171,248 would be needed for interventions related to safe drinking water, US$23,715,500 for interventions related to sanitation while US$4,900,056 for interventions related to hygiene.
It also says US$10.2 is needed per pupils to ensure children have rights to have safe water, adequate sanitation and good hygiene in school.
A visit to several primary schools last week in Mchinji, Kasungu and Salima confirmed appalling conditions pupils endure in the country’s primary schools.
Enrolment figures in the visited schools like Msanza, Chankhalamu Junior Primary School and Kamala Full Primary School in Kasungu and Lifuwu Full Primary School in Salima showed girls dropped out of school largely due to lack of toilets.
At Kamwala, where pupils have no toilet, there were 67 girls against 52 boys in STD 1, 51 girls against 13 boys in STD 7 and 11 girls against 14 boys in STD 8, in a school population of 347 girls against 316 boys.
At Lifuwu, where there are two permanent toilets, in STD 1 there were 149 girls against 126 boys, 40 girls against 33 boys in STD 6 and 16 girls against 28 boys in STD 8, which shows a steady decline in girl-child retention rate.
Kasungu District Education Manager, Christopher Kumikundi, said in an interview that most girls faked sickness due to lack of toilets and clean water in the schools, saying this has affected the retention rate of girls.
“Most of the times, girls say they are sick of malaria but the real thing is lack of toilets because they don’t know how to help themselves while in school,” Kumikundi said.
He, however, said in 35 schools in Kasungu where Unicef has provided sanitary and hygienic structures like toilets and boreholes, enrolment for girls has increased sharply.
UNICEF has since built toilets and water facilities like boreholes in several primary schools in the country to help check poor sanitary conditions, largely forcing pupils to drop out of school at an early stage.
According to the ministry, UNICEF has left a gap which needs to be filled by other development partners as well as civil society organisations like NGOs dealing in sanitary issues.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Stop at Msanza Junior Primary School in Mchinji, you get moving stories of how the existence of toilets and sanitation structures at the school is doing magic on girl education.
Although the school lacks adequate school blocks to cater for its four classes but one thing the pupils are proud of is the presence of toilet facilities at the school.
At the 6-year-old school, both boys and girls have their own permanent toilets. The same case applies to their teachers.
In the middle of the school premises, is a borehole offering clean water, and was drilled with assistance from United Nations Children Fund (Unicef).
Until the toilets and sanitation facilities were fixed, there was prolonged absenteeism among pupils due to lack of toilets, school authorities said.
For the elder girls, it was even more difficult for them to go to the school at the time they were menstruating.
This time, the enrolment for the girl-child has soared at the school because girls now feel comfortable to attend a school where there are toilets and water resources.
Although the picture looks better at Msanza regarding toilets, it is however pathetic in other public primary school across the country.
Currently, government is stepping up efforts to ensure proper sanitation for all the 5, 600 primary schools in the country, singling out the need to refurbish over 4,000 primary school if efforts to retain pupils in school are to bear fruits.
In the drive, the Ministry of Education says it badly needs US$36.8 million (about K5.6 billion) to bridge the gap of proper sanitary and hygienic standards in the country.
The ministry says anything less than the stated amount undermines efforts to protect children from disease and hinders their ability to develop to their fullest potential.
Director of Basic Education, McKnight Kalanda told journalists in Lilongwe last week that his ministry wants schools to have portable water, proper sanitation and hygienic standards but this was possible if partners helped to bridge the existing gap.
“We want you journalists to help us spread the message so that we can fill the gap,” appealed Kalanda, just before a media tour to some selected primary schools as one way of appreciating the extent of poor sanitation in schools.
The ministry, with funding from Unicef, conducted the National School WASH Assessment in 2008 covering 5, 379 schools to analyse issues of water, sanitation and hygiene in primary schools.
The report dated May 2009, which will be launched today in Lilongwe, gives a sorry picture about sanitation and hygiene standards in schools requiring urgent attention.
It says while 81 percent of schools use a protected water source, only 23 percent have acceptable sanitation and only four percent provide hand-washing facilities with soap.
At the cost of US$36.8 million, the ministry says it wants to construct about 1,000 boreholes, more than 8,000 hand-washing facilities and 37,000 latrines in more than 4,000 schools to overturn the situation.
“I would, therefore, like to invite our bilateral partners, United Nations agencies, local and international Non-Governmental Organisations, and the private sector to study this report and see how and where they can assist in providing water, sanitation, and hygiene to the 3.6million children who attend our schools,” Secretary for Education Bernard Sande is quoted as saying in the report’s preface.
The report noted that from the expected cost of US$36.8 million, US$ 8,171,248 would be needed for interventions related to safe drinking water, US$23,715,500 for interventions related to sanitation while US$4,900,056 for interventions related to hygiene.
It also says US$10.2 is needed per pupils to ensure children have rights to have safe water, adequate sanitation and good hygiene in school.
A visit to several primary schools last week in Mchinji, Kasungu and Salima confirmed appalling conditions pupils endure in the country’s primary schools.
Enrolment figures in the visited schools like Msanza, Chankhalamu Junior Primary School and Kamala Full Primary School in Kasungu and Lifuwu Full Primary School in Salima showed girls dropped out of school largely due to lack of toilets.
At Kamwala, where pupils have no toilet, there were 67 girls against 52 boys in STD 1, 51 girls against 13 boys in STD 7 and 11 girls against 14 boys in STD 8, in a school population of 347 girls against 316 boys.
At Lifuwu, where there are two permanent toilets, in STD 1 there were 149 girls against 126 boys, 40 girls against 33 boys in STD 6 and 16 girls against 28 boys in STD 8, which shows a steady decline in girl-child retention rate.
Kasungu District Education Manager, Christopher Kumikundi, said in an interview that most girls faked sickness due to lack of toilets and clean water in the schools, saying this has affected the retention rate of girls.
“Most of the times, girls say they are sick of malaria but the real thing is lack of toilets because they don’t know how to help themselves while in school,” Kumikundi said.
He, however, said in 35 schools in Kasungu where Unicef has provided sanitary and hygienic structures like toilets and boreholes, enrolment for girls has increased sharply.
UNICEF has since built toilets and water facilities like boreholes in several primary schools in the country to help check poor sanitary conditions, largely forcing pupils to drop out of school at an early stage.
According to the ministry, UNICEF has left a gap which needs to be filled by other development partners as well as civil society organisations like NGOs dealing in sanitary issues.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Education ministers discuss peace education | MWAKERA MWAJEFA
Source: The Daily Nation (Kenya)
By MWAKERA MWAJEFA Posted Monday, September 14 2009 at 17:29
Conflicts and insecurity continue to pose major challenges to the economic, social and cultural development of many African countries, Education minister Sam Ongeri said on Monday.
Prof Ongeri, in a keynote address to five African ministers drawn from war-torn countries in Mombasa, expressed concern that instability was costing the continent dearly in terms of development issues.
“Some of our countries suffer from violent conflicts which lead to millions of people being rendered refugees or internally displaced persons in their motherland,” he said.
The minister noted that in such conflicts the education sector suffered most through the destruction of essential resources.
In conflict situations, Prof Ongeri said most governments prioritised allocation of resources to matters of security other than funding education as a basic human right.
According to the minister, the 1 per cent of the global military and arms expenditures in a year could be able to achieve education for all (EFA) and millennium development goals (MDGs) related to education.
From what Kenya experienced last year in the polls chaos the government introduced Peace Education as a compulsory subject in its school system, the minister added.
“The main aim of peace education is to empower citizens with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes needed for harmonious co-existence,” he said.
He noted that during the political crisis over 200,000 primary and secondary schools’ children were displaced and numerous learning institutions destroyed throughout the country.
Earlier, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) chairman Zingai Mtumbuka asked ministers to use their education systems as agencies and forces for peace-building, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and nation building.
“Without peace there cannot be development, without peace there cannot be human development and without peace social, economic or political gains become a mirage,” he said.
For education to be an agency for fostering peace, Mr Mtumbuka told the participants to become activists of spreading peace in the minds and souls of their people.
He reminded them that education does not take place only in the learning institutions but also in the family setups where instilling of values, attitudes and knowledge is done to the young ones.
Five ministers Dr Kamanda Bataringaya (Uganda), Mrs Angelina Motshekga (South Africa), Halima Hasaballa (Sudan), Mwangu Famba (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Dr Antonio Burity Da Salva (Angola) will share experiences related to peace education during the three-day workshop.
Peace education to be part of curriculum | ANTHONY KAGIRI
Source: Capital FM Kenya
MOMBASA, Kenya, Sept 16 - African education ministers from nations that have been hit by conflicts have resolved to incorporate peace education as a key component of the curriculum.
Backed by education specialists the ministers on Wednesday said they had agreed to add to the curriculum a “dimension specifically aimed at eradicating violence and promoting love among people.”
The ministers from seven countries decided to deliberately push the cohesion agenda so as to instill in the learners the culture of unity as a plan to rescue the divided societies of their countries.
“Education as a foundation for development and as an instrument for fostering a culture of peace, should go beyond the acquisition of knowledge and skills to seek transformation of hearts and minds and enable human beings live in harmony,” a joint communiqué from the seven nations said.
The ministers and specialists have been meting in Mombasa for a three-day conference on peace education. Countries represented include Kenya, Angola, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The conference was called to enable countries share experiences and learn from each other.
“Education should bring learners to consider the racial, religious and cultural diversities of their societies,” the joint statement said.
Among strategies to be pursued include capacity building for peace educators, curriculum developers, trainers and learners, “to become the agents of peace.”
In the new strategy the education stakeholders will be guided by ‘African traditional values and will appreciate the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity.’
The group stressed the need to ensure effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the peace education programs.
“We shall formulate and strengthen national policies and strategies,” the stakeholders agreed.
The conference has been organized by the Kenyan Education Ministry in collaboration with the Association for Development Education in Africa (ADEA), an institution that was formed by the World Bank and other donors to boost education growth in Africa. The theme for the conference was Education for fostering peace, integration and partnership.
The meeting regretted that conflict and instability compromise educational quality and achievement of the education for all millennium development goals.
To support their resolve the countries appealed to African governments to legislate against hate speech an inflammatory communication.
“The governments should work with partners and in particular the media to encourage positive messages,” the statement said
The conference was a follow-up to the 2004 ‘Mombasa Declaration’ where countries committed to utilize education systems as agents for peace building and nation building.
Addressing the conference earlier in the week Education Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi had challenged the nations to conduct regular in-service training for teachers to help them deliver on value based education. Prof Mutahi had said that previous resolutions had failed to deliver since value based education had been academic based and exam oriented.
Read more: http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Kenyanews/Peace-education-to-be-part-of-curriculum-5814.html#ixzz0aH5qVPLO
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
MOMBASA, Kenya, Sept 16 - African education ministers from nations that have been hit by conflicts have resolved to incorporate peace education as a key component of the curriculum.
Backed by education specialists the ministers on Wednesday said they had agreed to add to the curriculum a “dimension specifically aimed at eradicating violence and promoting love among people.”
The ministers from seven countries decided to deliberately push the cohesion agenda so as to instill in the learners the culture of unity as a plan to rescue the divided societies of their countries.
“Education as a foundation for development and as an instrument for fostering a culture of peace, should go beyond the acquisition of knowledge and skills to seek transformation of hearts and minds and enable human beings live in harmony,” a joint communiqué from the seven nations said.
The ministers and specialists have been meting in Mombasa for a three-day conference on peace education. Countries represented include Kenya, Angola, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The conference was called to enable countries share experiences and learn from each other.
“Education should bring learners to consider the racial, religious and cultural diversities of their societies,” the joint statement said.
Among strategies to be pursued include capacity building for peace educators, curriculum developers, trainers and learners, “to become the agents of peace.”
In the new strategy the education stakeholders will be guided by ‘African traditional values and will appreciate the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity.’
The group stressed the need to ensure effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the peace education programs.
“We shall formulate and strengthen national policies and strategies,” the stakeholders agreed.
The conference has been organized by the Kenyan Education Ministry in collaboration with the Association for Development Education in Africa (ADEA), an institution that was formed by the World Bank and other donors to boost education growth in Africa. The theme for the conference was Education for fostering peace, integration and partnership.
The meeting regretted that conflict and instability compromise educational quality and achievement of the education for all millennium development goals.
To support their resolve the countries appealed to African governments to legislate against hate speech an inflammatory communication.
“The governments should work with partners and in particular the media to encourage positive messages,” the statement said
The conference was a follow-up to the 2004 ‘Mombasa Declaration’ where countries committed to utilize education systems as agents for peace building and nation building.
Addressing the conference earlier in the week Education Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi had challenged the nations to conduct regular in-service training for teachers to help them deliver on value based education. Prof Mutahi had said that previous resolutions had failed to deliver since value based education had been academic based and exam oriented.
Read more: http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Kenyanews/Peace-education-to-be-part-of-curriculum-5814.html#ixzz0aH5qVPLO
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
Delegates converge on Mombasa for peace education conference | Fred Cawanda
13 September, 2009
Source: Afrique en ligne
Mombasa, Kenya - Delegates from several African countries in conflict or post-conflict situation started jetting into Kenya's southeastern seaport city of Mombasa Sunday evening for a 14-16 Sept. regional conference on 'Education for Peace', PANA reported.
Among the first delegations to arrive were those from Angola, Cote dâ?Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and host Kenya, while others from Mauritania, Zimbabwe and Uganda were still being expected.
Madagascar, Mozambique, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone are also on the list of the 14 nations invited to the meeting, jointly organized by the Kenyan Ministry of Education and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).
The facilitators and moderators of the conference were drawn from different gove rnmental and civil society institutions in Africa, as well as from other international bodies including the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
According to the organisers, the aim of the gathering is to raise the awareness of African societies on the need to transform their educational systems into a real peace-building tool with an active role in conflicts prevention and resolution.
To this end, participants will share experiences on the provision of education services in conflict and post-conflict situations, as well as build consensus on their countries' responsibilities in the development of peace education within their regions.
They will also seek to determine the modalities for mutual collaboration and networking across national boundaries and produce a final report to be shared among the participating countries.
The workshop is being presented as a step towards implementing the recommendations from an earlier conference also held in Mombasa, on 2-4 June 2004, which deliberated on the challenges of expanding education in crisis, post-conflict and difficult circumstances.
The final Declaration from the 2004 Mombasa meeting stated the commitment of African ministers and their representatives to utilize their education systems as 'agencies and forces for peace-building, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and nation-b uilding'.
The initiative was prompted by the recognition that the conflicts are a major ob stacle to the development of education in Africa with â?particularly devastating impact: destroyed or damaged infrastructures, dismantled teaching staff and traumatized, orphaned and displaced refugee children or child soldiers'.
'Conflicts go well beyond a braking effect and stagnation. They also cause regression,' ADEA said in a note released in Mombasa, noting that almost half of Africa had been devastated by armed conflicts during the last two decades.
As an example, it said, enrolment rates fell by about 30 to 40 points in many African countries which had recorded a practically universal access to primary education.
Mombasa - 13/09/2009
By Fred Cawanda, PANA Correspondent
Source: Afrique en ligne
Mombasa, Kenya - Delegates from several African countries in conflict or post-conflict situation started jetting into Kenya's southeastern seaport city of Mombasa Sunday evening for a 14-16 Sept. regional conference on 'Education for Peace', PANA reported.
Among the first delegations to arrive were those from Angola, Cote dâ?Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and host Kenya, while others from Mauritania, Zimbabwe and Uganda were still being expected.
Madagascar, Mozambique, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone are also on the list of the 14 nations invited to the meeting, jointly organized by the Kenyan Ministry of Education and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).
The facilitators and moderators of the conference were drawn from different gove rnmental and civil society institutions in Africa, as well as from other international bodies including the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
According to the organisers, the aim of the gathering is to raise the awareness of African societies on the need to transform their educational systems into a real peace-building tool with an active role in conflicts prevention and resolution.
To this end, participants will share experiences on the provision of education services in conflict and post-conflict situations, as well as build consensus on their countries' responsibilities in the development of peace education within their regions.
They will also seek to determine the modalities for mutual collaboration and networking across national boundaries and produce a final report to be shared among the participating countries.
The workshop is being presented as a step towards implementing the recommendations from an earlier conference also held in Mombasa, on 2-4 June 2004, which deliberated on the challenges of expanding education in crisis, post-conflict and difficult circumstances.
The final Declaration from the 2004 Mombasa meeting stated the commitment of African ministers and their representatives to utilize their education systems as 'agencies and forces for peace-building, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and nation-b uilding'.
The initiative was prompted by the recognition that the conflicts are a major ob stacle to the development of education in Africa with â?particularly devastating impact: destroyed or damaged infrastructures, dismantled teaching staff and traumatized, orphaned and displaced refugee children or child soldiers'.
'Conflicts go well beyond a braking effect and stagnation. They also cause regression,' ADEA said in a note released in Mombasa, noting that almost half of Africa had been devastated by armed conflicts during the last two decades.
As an example, it said, enrolment rates fell by about 30 to 40 points in many African countries which had recorded a practically universal access to primary education.
Mombasa - 13/09/2009
By Fred Cawanda, PANA Correspondent
VIEW POINT : On Malawi’s Education Policy 2008-2017 | Dr Johnstone Kumwenda
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Source: The Sunday Times (Malawi)
In this article I will attempt to answer the questions: ‘what does the Malawi Education Policy 2008 to 2017 say about higher education’ and ‘how does it propose to achieve what it says it will achieve?’
Priorities on higher education
The policy recognizes three main priorities in relationship to higher education. These include:
1. Priority 1: Governance and management
a. Develop policies designed to encourage private providers of service to be in line with minimum quality requirements
b. Prepare and put in place a Higher Education Act
c. Institute a semi-autonomous accreditation and quality assurance agency under supervision of Council for Higher Education
d. Strengthen governance, management, oversight, transparency and accountability of higher education institutions
e. Develop and implement programs to improve quality and efficiency funded by universities themselves from their own resources
2. Priority 2: Access and equity
a. Double enrollment over the next 5 to 10 years focusing on critical academic areas while increasing efficiency in public universities to keep spending by the state to approximately current levels while expanding private universities
b. Mainstreaming special needs education in all programs
c. Mainstreaming mitigation of HIV/Aids among students
d. Increase access for female students and students with special needs where applicable
3. Priority 3: Quality and relevance
a. Focus on infrastructure development on science and technology laboratories, workshops and ICT
b. Monitor quality, accreditation standards and advise government on higher education policy
c. Upgrade teaching and learning infrastructure in colleges
d. Improve staff qualifications especially lecturers without PhDs
I would now like to discuss some of the subthemes from each of these three priorities separately taking out the ones that I think may not serve us as well as we would like.
1. Funding: The issue of funding is very important. Some of the bullets state, “Develop and implement programs to improve quality and efficiency funded by universities themselves from their own resources while keep spending by the state to approximately current levels” (second part from priority 2). The question one may ask is whether the universities in Malawi have the capacity to generate own income. What does it take for universities to do so? The internal market in Malawi is small. There are few industries that would commission universities to carry out tasks that would bring adequate sources of funding to universities. In essence, without increasing government subvention to universities, the anticipated expansion may not take place
2. Increasing intake: The issue that has raised the ugliest exchanges in our debate is about whom is eligible to get into university. Increasing intake is the natural solution to the current debacle. The statement on increasing intake says, “Double enrollment over the next 5 to 10 years focusing on critical academic areas while increasing efficiency in public universities to keep spending by the state to approximately current levels. The two public universities in Malawi currently recruit about 1,400 students maximum each year from secondary school. We have on average between 3,000 and 4,000 eligible students for university entrance. Doubling intake to the public universities will not recruit all the eligible candidates. If we assume that secondary education will improve with time, the number of eligible candidates will also increase in this decade. What will become of the increasing number of eligible students? The issue of maintaining current funding levels and yet double intake is a source of concern. The universities are already struggling to keep afloat despite the increased funding in the past 5 years. The emphasis on universities’ self-generated funding is at present not realistic.
What can we learn from other nations that started almost like Malawi?
Mark J. Schafer of Louisiana State University in his paper “Household change and rural school enrollment in Malawi and Kenya”, says both Malawi and Kenya developed their national education systems around the British model after gaining independence from Great Britain in the 1960s but Malawi failed to invest its limited resources in education at the same rate as that of Kenya. Kenya allocated a greater share of the national wealth to education. From 1970 to 1995, Kenyan government expenditure on education averaged 6.4 percent of GDP compared to Malawi’s only 3.8 percent. Kenya's public educational expenditure tripled from $121.1 million in the 1970s to $378.7 million in 1980, an average annual increase of 11.4 percent.
During the same period, Malawi's public educational expenditure increased only 2.4 percent annually, from $35.5 million to $45.2 million in 1980. In a similar analysis Dr Nicola Swainson says in 1990, Zimbabwe spent approximately eight times more (in US dollar terms) on each primary pupil than Malawi. In the same year Zimbabwe's expenditure per pupil at secondary school level was USD 233 compared to Malawi’s USD 41.
Malawians pursued an elitist strategy of limited enrollments in high-quality schools aimed at training diplomats and managers. In stark contrast, Kenya exhorted all citizens to contribute to school expansion through a self-help strategy called harambee (a Swahili word meaning ‘let us all pull together’). Malawi’s education system therefore remained highly selective while Kenya empowered local communities to determine the pace of primary school expansion.
Conclusion: The current policy falls short in a number of areas that are important in moving this country forward. Dr DD Phiri has written over and over again about the Asiatic economic tigers. The recipe for their success is a simple one; invest in education today massively (not in a token manner) and leap the dividends 25 to 30 years later. By not doing so now, the current debacle we have now pointing fingers at each other will continue after we are long dead.
Source: The Sunday Times (Malawi)
In this article I will attempt to answer the questions: ‘what does the Malawi Education Policy 2008 to 2017 say about higher education’ and ‘how does it propose to achieve what it says it will achieve?’
Priorities on higher education
The policy recognizes three main priorities in relationship to higher education. These include:
1. Priority 1: Governance and management
a. Develop policies designed to encourage private providers of service to be in line with minimum quality requirements
b. Prepare and put in place a Higher Education Act
c. Institute a semi-autonomous accreditation and quality assurance agency under supervision of Council for Higher Education
d. Strengthen governance, management, oversight, transparency and accountability of higher education institutions
e. Develop and implement programs to improve quality and efficiency funded by universities themselves from their own resources
2. Priority 2: Access and equity
a. Double enrollment over the next 5 to 10 years focusing on critical academic areas while increasing efficiency in public universities to keep spending by the state to approximately current levels while expanding private universities
b. Mainstreaming special needs education in all programs
c. Mainstreaming mitigation of HIV/Aids among students
d. Increase access for female students and students with special needs where applicable
3. Priority 3: Quality and relevance
a. Focus on infrastructure development on science and technology laboratories, workshops and ICT
b. Monitor quality, accreditation standards and advise government on higher education policy
c. Upgrade teaching and learning infrastructure in colleges
d. Improve staff qualifications especially lecturers without PhDs
I would now like to discuss some of the subthemes from each of these three priorities separately taking out the ones that I think may not serve us as well as we would like.
1. Funding: The issue of funding is very important. Some of the bullets state, “Develop and implement programs to improve quality and efficiency funded by universities themselves from their own resources while keep spending by the state to approximately current levels” (second part from priority 2). The question one may ask is whether the universities in Malawi have the capacity to generate own income. What does it take for universities to do so? The internal market in Malawi is small. There are few industries that would commission universities to carry out tasks that would bring adequate sources of funding to universities. In essence, without increasing government subvention to universities, the anticipated expansion may not take place
2. Increasing intake: The issue that has raised the ugliest exchanges in our debate is about whom is eligible to get into university. Increasing intake is the natural solution to the current debacle. The statement on increasing intake says, “Double enrollment over the next 5 to 10 years focusing on critical academic areas while increasing efficiency in public universities to keep spending by the state to approximately current levels. The two public universities in Malawi currently recruit about 1,400 students maximum each year from secondary school. We have on average between 3,000 and 4,000 eligible students for university entrance. Doubling intake to the public universities will not recruit all the eligible candidates. If we assume that secondary education will improve with time, the number of eligible candidates will also increase in this decade. What will become of the increasing number of eligible students? The issue of maintaining current funding levels and yet double intake is a source of concern. The universities are already struggling to keep afloat despite the increased funding in the past 5 years. The emphasis on universities’ self-generated funding is at present not realistic.
What can we learn from other nations that started almost like Malawi?
Mark J. Schafer of Louisiana State University in his paper “Household change and rural school enrollment in Malawi and Kenya”, says both Malawi and Kenya developed their national education systems around the British model after gaining independence from Great Britain in the 1960s but Malawi failed to invest its limited resources in education at the same rate as that of Kenya. Kenya allocated a greater share of the national wealth to education. From 1970 to 1995, Kenyan government expenditure on education averaged 6.4 percent of GDP compared to Malawi’s only 3.8 percent. Kenya's public educational expenditure tripled from $121.1 million in the 1970s to $378.7 million in 1980, an average annual increase of 11.4 percent.
During the same period, Malawi's public educational expenditure increased only 2.4 percent annually, from $35.5 million to $45.2 million in 1980. In a similar analysis Dr Nicola Swainson says in 1990, Zimbabwe spent approximately eight times more (in US dollar terms) on each primary pupil than Malawi. In the same year Zimbabwe's expenditure per pupil at secondary school level was USD 233 compared to Malawi’s USD 41.
Malawians pursued an elitist strategy of limited enrollments in high-quality schools aimed at training diplomats and managers. In stark contrast, Kenya exhorted all citizens to contribute to school expansion through a self-help strategy called harambee (a Swahili word meaning ‘let us all pull together’). Malawi’s education system therefore remained highly selective while Kenya empowered local communities to determine the pace of primary school expansion.
Conclusion: The current policy falls short in a number of areas that are important in moving this country forward. Dr DD Phiri has written over and over again about the Asiatic economic tigers. The recipe for their success is a simple one; invest in education today massively (not in a token manner) and leap the dividends 25 to 30 years later. By not doing so now, the current debacle we have now pointing fingers at each other will continue after we are long dead.
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