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MALAWI: Free Education At What Price

Claire Ngozo

LILONGWE, Feb 13 2010 (IPS) - He fishes by night and sells his catch by day. He’s the breadwinner for his family of six. Maliko Malombe is nine years old.

“He is the man of this house and has to provide for us,” says his mother, Tadala. “What are we going to eat if he attends school?”

Maliko, from Malawi’s lake district of Mangochi, has never seen the inside of a classroom. He is the youngest child in his household, the only boy among four sisters.

His widowed mother believes it is her son’s duty to provide for the family. None of his sisters, aged between 10 to 17, go to school either – the two youngest help their mother with household chores while the older ones work a plot of land for food to eat.

“We are living comfortably and have three meals a day because all my children help to provide for our daily needs,” says Tadala Malombe. 

Malawi introduced free basic education in 1994, and the number of pupils enrolled in primary schools rose quickly from 1.9 to 3.2 million – and there are still more children out there.

Current figures from the ministry of education indicate that up to 20 percent of Malawian children aged between six and 13 do not attend primary school. The Creative Centre for Community Mobilisation (CRECCOM), a Malawian civil society organisation advocating for improved education standards, says there should be a law compelling children to attend school.

“The major problem we have is that universal primary education is not compulsory although it is free. Some communities do not really feel compelled to send their children because there’s no law that forces them to do that,” George Jobe, executive director of CRECCOM told IPS.

Solution a problem?

There are no plans to make education compulsory, but If such a law were passed tomorrow, what would it mean for Maliko?

To begin with, an eleven kilometre trek to the nearest school. There he would find three blocks of classes, not nearly enough to hold all the students. Most classes, says teacher Godfrey Nkhoma, are held under trees or thatched shelters.

“There are no classes when it rains and this means that we do not teach them enough,” says Nkhoma.

Nkhoma says the school is also short of staff. “It is common to have up to 100 pupils being taught by one teacher. It is very difficult for one teacher to teach so many pupils at one go. The standards of education are very low. The teaching and learning materials are never enough.”


Unfortunately, the state of affairs in this corner of the lake district is not unique. The Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education (CSCQBE), which groups NGOs, the teachers’ union and religious organisations to monitor and influence government policy on education, says Malawi needs 12,000 more teachers.

The coalition reports that drop-out and repetition rates are very high in primary schools. In 2009, a CSCQBE report found 20 percent of pupils in Standard One repeated the grade at least once; 24 percent dropped out of school entirely, overwhelmed by the obstacles to learning.

“The school is really far from some villages and this deters many children from attending school regularly,” Nkhoma, told IPS. 

Government acting on problems

The education minister, George Chaponda, told Parliament on Feb. 9, 2009, that government will ensure that education standards improve, beginning with reducing the teacher to pupil ratio. Currently there is just one teacher for every 90 students; the government aims to reduce this to 1:60 by 2013, and to 1:40 by 2017.

“We will make sure that students are all getting quality education because education is the key to everything,” said Chaponda.

Education was allocated 167 million dollars, 12 percent of the 2009-2010 budget. Only agriculture received more. The budget statement directs the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to improve provision of teaching, learning materials, and teacher training.

There are plans to open a new teacher training college and introduce “double shifting”, a system in which overcrowding in selected primary and secondary schools will be relieved by pupils starting lessons at different times.

CRECCOM’s Jobe says Malawi has a long way to go, but is encouraged by the steps being taken.

“There’s some light at the end of the tunnel. We can make it. We need to ensure that all plans are implemented,” says Jobe.