Steadying the edifice: Rebuilding Malawi’s Education Sector from Foundational Learning to Higher Education

The Education Sector Performance Review (ESPR), commonly referred to as the Joint Sector Review (JSR), is a grand, much-anticipated annual event. It is where stakeholders in Malawi’s education sector take stock of progress over the past year, and agree on priorities and targets for the next year, in the broader context of mid and long-term policy goals. The 2023 JSR was held on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th October, at the Bingu International Convention Centre, in Lilongwe.

The keynote address was delivered by Esme Kadzamira, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Malawi Centre for Educational Research and Training (CERT). Kadzamira is Malawi’s foremost educational researcher. Her keynote address was titled “Transforming Education: Investing in Foundational Learning and Skills Development for a Wealthy Self-reliant and Resilient Nation.” It was a powerful and insightful overview of the education sector, from early childhood education to tertiary education. Kadzamira argued about how poor learning outcomes at the foundational level are having serious repercussions across the education system.

Some of the most important takeaways from this year’s JSR point to where the system is bleeding, but also offer fascinating prospects on what is being done to achieve transformation towards 2030 goals and beyond. The ESPR draws mostly from the Annual School Census (ASC), an activity under the Education Management Information System - EMIS (the ASC and EMIS are used interchangeably in the rest of this article). Together, the ESPR and the ASC present most current education statistics and developments in Malawi, enabling evidence-informed decision making in the sector. This year’s ESPR was unflinching in presenting some of the most troubling statistics.

The costs of repetition

Using rounded up figures, the Annual School Census for 2023 shows that 1.3 million primary school learners are repeating a class this year. Given a current enrolment of 5.3 million primary school learners, the number of repeaters represents 26 percent of the student population. The 2023 ESPR report shows that as a country, we are spending K48,000 ($40) per primary school learner. This computes to K62.4 billion ($52.8 million), 10 percent of the nominal education budget allocation of K603.36 billion ($511.3 million), as presented in Parliament in March 2023. The percentage goes up to 13 percent if we use the real budget as approved, at K478.5 billion ($405.5 million), according to the 2023 ESPR. Chitipa district has the highest repetition rate in the country this year, at 35 percent. It is followed by Mwanza district, which has a 33 percent repetition rate. The lowest repetition rate is in Mzuzu City, at 13 percent, with Zomba Urban coming second lowest, at 15 percent. Ultimately, such high repetition rates are a major contributor to students being pushed out of the system. The 2023 EMIS shows that only one out of four primary school learners makes it to Standard 8.

The problem of repetition is less pronounced at the secondary school level. The 2023 EMIS shows that there are currently 12,874 secondary school students repeating. According to the ESPR, the country is spending K190,000 ($161) per secondary school student, which means K2.4 billion ($2 million) is being spent on secondary school repeaters.

Internal and external factors

There are internal and external factors responsible for these problems. Many primary school classes, especially in the early grades, are larger than the average national teacher-pupil ratio of 1:62. This makes teaching and learning stressful and inefficient. The ESPR also shows that there are serious textbook shortages in primary schools, with up to 11 learners sharing one textbook, for subjects including English, Chichewa and Mathematics, in the middle classes. When learners have no textbooks, very little learning happens, and intrinsic motivation dwindles. School infrastructure in the public system is dilapidated, with many dysfunctional toilets and classrooms that are not fit for purpose.

Externally, widespread economic hardship makes it difficult for households to support their children for education success. Yet parents are increasingly being asked to contribute financially to keep some school services running. There are also problems with access to early childhood care and education, where only half of the caregivers are professionally trained, and those on government payroll are paid K20,000 (($17) per month. The government’s investment in early childhood education is miniscule, with 0.02 percent of the national budget allocated to the sub-sector in 2023. The result is that many learners enter primary school not fully prepared. All these conditions collude to make schooling difficult and inefficient, with many learners failing to succeed, leading to repetitions and dropouts. While there are 5.3 million primary school learners, there are only 485,650 secondary school students in 2023.

Secondary school is very selective

In her keynote address, Kadzamira pointed out that given how selective the secondary school system is, its performance is “unsatisfactory”. In the 2023 Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination results, only 54.4 percent of the students passed. Not only is secondary education in Malawi highly selective, it is also very unequal. The examination results bring this reality into sharp focus. There are five broad categories of secondary schools in Malawi, namely Boarding, Day, Community Day, Open, and Private. There is further categorisation under each broad type.

The Annual School Census shows that in 2023, the country has 77 boarding secondary schools, 61 Day secondary schools, 805 community day secondary schools, 419 open secondary schools, and 424 private secondary schools. The total number is presented as 1,350 in the ASC. It should be noted that the 419 open secondary schools are not separate individual secondary schools. Students in the Open system are enrolled by existing public secondary schools and attend school in the afternoon, after the government-enrolled students who attend in the morning.

In the 2023 MSCE results, conventional secondary school students (boarding and day) comprised 26 percent of all candidates, and their pass rate was 68 percent. CDSS students comprised 50 percent of all candidates, and their pass rate was 45.5 percent. Students who took the exam via the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) route constituted 25 percent of all candidates, and their pass rate was 51 percent. Another category, 12 percent, sat the exam as external students, and their pass rate was 42 percent.

Several factors make secondary education inefficient, and as the ESPR makes clear, funding is one of them. But of greater concern are shortages of qualified teachers in particular subjects. The 2023 ASC reports that out of 18,811 secondary school teachers in the country, 3,896 teachers are not qualified to teach any subject, representing 20 percent. In the sciences, the country has only 555 qualified physics teachers, 404 qualified chemistry teachers, and 819 qualified agriculture teachers. Life Skills has 247 qualified teachers, while only 222 are qualified to teach Computer Studies.

Teacher shortages in the arts and creative subjects are even more shocking. The country has only 4 qualified Creative Arts teachers, 7 qualified teachers in Music and in Craft Design, and 14 qualified teachers in Performing Arts. Clothing and Textile has 6 qualified teachers, Woodwork has 49, and Technical Drawing has 56. There are only 15 qualified teachers for Principles of Accounting.

The government aims to strengthen the teaching of technical and vocational subjects in secondary schools, as one means of developing human capital and driving the three Malawi 2063 pillars of agricultural production and commercialisation, industrialisation, and urbanisation. A Skills Needs Assessment Report released in March 2023 by the Skills for a Vibrant Economy (SAVE) project found skills gaps in the key areas of the Malawi 2063 agenda, including agriculture, education, health, energy, industry, and ICT. It is imperative for teacher education institutions to introduce more technical, vocational and creative arts subjects, and to produce more qualified teachers in the sciences and in Computer Studies.

University education is even more selective

In July 2023, the Ministry of Education released selection results for public universities. A total of 8,552 students were selected into the country’s six public universities. Out of these, 1,320 were from CDSSs, representing 15.9 percent, as reported by Malawi News’s Feston Malekezo. Considering that CDSS students made up half of the MSCE candidates, a lot of the public commentary that followed highlighted how the quality of education offered to the majority of students in the country was an issue to worry about.

The 8,552 student selected to public universities represented 5.5 percent of the total number of students who sat the MSCE in 2022, and 10 percent of those who passed. Figures on first year enrolment into private universities are not available, but the 2023 ESPR reports that there are currently 63,533 students studying in all of the country’s higher education institutions, public and private. (The 2023 ASC reports a different figure of 74,200 undergraduates, and 6,794 postgraduate students, totalling 80,994 students).

The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), which coordinates selection into public universities, reported receiving 19,760 applications. Out of these, 18,471 were deemed eligible for selection into university. To be eligible, a student must have 6 credit passes, which should include English. Malawian universities are relatively small, which means that they are able to admit only the highest scoring students, cutting off at around 22 MSCE points for most of them. Programmes deemed more prestigious cut off at around 15 points. While NCHE’s eligibility criteria of 6 credit passes allows students with up to 36 points to be admitted into degree programmes, the cut off points in the public universities mean that students scoring between 23 and 36 points do not even attempt to apply for selection. The number of students whose points lie between 23 and 36 is unknown.

Private universities face the opposite problem, as most of them are under-enrolled. Government subsidizes fees in public universities, at about K4 million ($3,400) per student. Private universities are not subsidised, which makes their fees higher than in public universities. The Higher Education Students Loans and Grants Board disburses loans to eligible students in both public and private universities, but the amounts are capped based on fees in public universities. Thus private universities are beyond the reach of many Malawians. Even with government loans, many students in both public and private universities still struggle, and some drop out altogether.

In July 2023 several public universities announced raises in tuition fees. In one university, fees went up from K350,000 ($300) to K650,000 ($3,800). Since then, students have been protesting these fee increases. One public university has been closed after protests turned violent. Given major financial problems in the universities, in the face of dwindling government funding, the universities had very little choice but to raise the fees. Rather than asking universities to bring the fees down, as the students are (understandably) suggesting, the government needs to increase funding to the universities, including increasing the allocation given to the Loans Board. This is the only realistic course of action to ensure that students who need financial aid receive it, and that universities are able to raise the funds they need to operate.

The Loans Board supports students pursuing undergraduate degree programmes only, but not postgraduate students. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. The 6,794 postgraduate students as reported in the 2023 ASC shows that postgraduate education and research in Malawi is hugely underdeveloped. In previous years the National Commission for Science and Technology has supported a small number postgraduate students, but the fact remains that most postgraduate students in the country are self-funded.

Raising ambitions: The road to 2030 and beyond

The Malawi Government needs to continue prioritising education, and ensuring that the sector gets 20 percent of the national budget or higher. A key consideration needs to go to enhancing the welfare of primary school teachers, who have a huge responsibility to make schooling interesting and relevant to learners and to communities. There is an urgent need to improve the morale of teachers, by offering special benefits to them, and improving their initial education as well as professional development. The current effort to elevate the primary school teacher certificate to a diploma and degree needs to be fast-tracked. During a breakout session at the JSR, it was pointed out that applications for primary teacher training colleges have been going down.

The country needs to look at the education sector in a holistic way. The economic hardships that many families are experiencing need to be addressed. That will ensure that households are able to support the schooling needs of their children, and that entire communities are able to support the education ecosystem.

The country also needs to address the bottleneck that has prevented the government from recruiting new teachers and improving the teacher-pupil ratio. This boils down to negotiations with the IMF around the public expenditure caps, which are a broader problem of current national debt. The 1:60 Teacher-Pupil Ratio, introduced in 2008, has never been achieved. It is outdated. It needs to be revised to a smaller, more conducive number not more than 35. That requires recruiting the more than 18,000 primary school teachers who have been trained in the last five years and are just roaming the streets unemployed. It also means increasing the number of teachers who need to be trained.

For the first time in the history of the United Nations, the 2022 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) included the Transforming Education Summit, convened by the UN Secretary General. President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera presented Malawi's National Statement of Commitment to Transforming Education. Amongst the commitments the President laid out was making the teaching profession "prestigious." That was a powerful promise that the country must take practical steps to fulfil. Government’s actions and programmes need to be aimed at elevating the teaching profession to make it truly prestigious.

The Ministry of Education is developing a national strategy for open distance and e-learning, which it hopes will revolutionise access to education at all levels. The strategy has the potential to provide secondary and tertiary education to a far bigger number of Malawians than the brick and mortar system can manage. Enrolment targets for 2030 therefore need to be revised to more ambitious numbers, especially at the tertiary level. The Malawi Open University, first mooted in 2014, should be made an urgent priority. The long-term national vision, the Malawi 2063, aims for every Malawian to access education from early childhood and to complete secondary education.

The target for higher education is set at 85,000, but that is too low, considering the projected number of Malawians who will be of college age by 2030. The National Statistics Office projects that by 2030, there will be 4.8 million Malawians in the age category of 15-24 years. A target of 85,000 computes to 1.7 percent, lower than the current tertiary enrolment rate of 3 percent. Malawi aims to become a Lower Middle Income Country (LMIC) by 2030, a category whose tertiary enrolment rate is 25 percent.

For Malawi to achieve that rate, it will need to have 1.2 million people in the 18-24 years age cohort studying in higher education institutions. The 2018 Population and Housing Census revealed that 92.9 percent of adult Malawians do not have a secondary school education, and that 70.1 percent do not have any school qualification. What this means is that the numbers of people craving for education broadly, and higher education in particular, are much higher. The country needs to devise innovative ways of widening access to higher education of good quality.

Making higher education available to millions of Malawians will mean increasing the budget for the Loans Board so that it can fully support as many students needing financial aid as possible. The private sector, which reaps massive profits from the public education system, needs to embrace a public mission and invest in human capital development at a magnitude much bigger than the current corporate social responsibility efforts. We need to have a national discussion on Shareholder responsibilities to public purpose around investing in the education system. The country needs to set new, more ambitious targets for postgraduate education, especially doctoral and post-doctoral research.

Currently there are no such targets at the national level. Specific emphasis needs to be put on funding postgraduate research in science, technology and innovation, which should include engineering, the arts and the humanities, and mathematics. The advent of Artificial Intelligence has put the world on the cusp of rapid, unprecedented technological transformation, which can be harnessed for positive outcomes, or can be hijacked for nasty eventualities. Given the country’s perennial social and economic challenges, there is an imperative to multiply the creative and innovative potential of young Malawians. The Malawi University of Science and Technology has established the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and STEAM (CAIST), taking the lead on that front.

A new collaborative initiative between the Malawi Government and development partners, called Building Education Foundations through Innovation and Technology (BEFIT), promises unprecedented potential to utilise educational technology and increase efficiency in the education system. The government's goal is for every learner in Standards 1 to 4 to have access to a tablet, and for all primary school teachers to be trained in how to use the technology, by 2029. In schools that have already started benefitting from the initiative, enrolment and retention are reported to have already improved.

The creative potential that can arise out of this combination can offer an education transformation of immense proportions. In 2022, the National Planning Commission published a book titled Malawi Priorities: A Benefit-Cost Analysis for Policy Prioritisation, where Technology-Assisted Learning (TAL) was recommended to be among the important strategies to transform primary education in Malawi.

The current 10-year education plan, the National Education Sector Investment Plan (NESIP) 2020-2030 needs to be seen as a dynamic, flexible policy recommendation that can be adjusted and improved along the way. Completed in 2020, there have been major developments since then that need to become part of the education policy and implementation response. For example, the Malawi 2063 First Ten Year implementation Plan (MIP-1) provides for an early childhood education programme at every primary school, by 2025. NESIP targets needs to be revised and updated to reflect new realities and ambitions.

Future JSRs need to widen stakeholder participation and should include the National Planning Commission and the National Commission for Science and Technology. The JSRs should also bring on board sectors that have a strong role in developing human capital. Students need to be part of the JSR. Ministries responsible for health, finance and economic planning, agriculture, and local government need to be present at the JSR, so that they are part of the discussion to transform Malawi’s education system.

On the 2023 PSLCE and JCE exam results & the coming curriculum review in Malawi

That this year’s Primary School Leaving Certificate Education examination (PSLCE) results in Malawi show improvements from last year is worth commenting on. The overall pass rate has gone up by 4 percent, from 83 percent in 2022, to 87 percent in 2023. The number of students who have passed has also gone up from last year. Last year 216,664 students passed the exam, this year that number is 234,645. This year 7,000 more students sat the exam.

Both girls and boys have improved their pass rates. The girls have improved by 6 percent, from 78 percent last year to 84 percent this year, while the boys have improved by 2 percent, from 88 percent last year to 90 percent this year. However, the pass rate for Special Needs Education students has gone down by 5 percent, from 76 percent last year, to 71 percent this year.

These improvements are remarkable. They show that despite everything that was thrown at the system in the past academic year, from climate crises to health emergencies, to the economic hardship the country is going through, some things in the education system are working well. It is delightful to see girls improving by six percent, and boys reaching the 90 percent pass rate. If the girls can achieve another 6 percent improvement next year, they too will reach the 90 percent pass rate. That would be outstanding. For SNE students, something needs to be done; their results should be going up, not down.

That said, selection to secondary school in Malawi remains a big worry. Only 41 percent of those who have passed have been selected into secondary schools. It has been 59 years since independence, and despite the many secondary schools constructed across the country, we still have very few of them, given the size of our population. Currently there are 250 new secondary schools being constructed and/or expanded, through various projects funded by development partners, and taxpayer money.

But we have a long way to go to reach a 100 percent transition rate, as per the 2030 target. That would require constructing more than the current number of secondary schools by 2030. Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that in 2022, there were 1,610 secondary schools in the country. This number should not be taken literally, because 327 of those schools were categorised as “Open.” Students in the “Open” system use the premises of existing government-run secondary schools, in the afternoon, after their conventional colleagues. They are enrolled and managed through the school’s own arrangement, rather than the government.

If we remove the Open schools, we remain with 1,283 schools that are real and have physical infrastructure of their own. Out of these, in the 2022 academic year, 365 were private, leaving 918 as the number of government-run secondary schools. Out of the 918 government-run secondary schools, 774 were Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSSs), representing 84 percent. What all this means is that even if we had some inexplicable windfall and managed to construct another 1,283 new secondary schools in seven years, we would still not be able to achieve a 100 percent primary school transition rate.

For one thing, a population growth rate of 2.9 percent means that the number of students keeps increasing every year. A pertinent observation that needs to be made is that the secondary school net enrolment is only 16.6 percent, meaning that a whopping 83.4 percent of the country’s 14-17 year olds are not attending secondary school (this week a report by Afrobarometer and the Mastercard Foundation said 66 percent of African youth were now attending secondary school). We would need to construct a far bigger number of secondary schools to accommodate the anticipated growth in enrolment.

The number of learners who sat the 2023 PSLCE examination is just one quarter of the number that enrolled in Standard One, eight years ago. In the 2015/2016 school year, there were an estimated 1.1 million learners in the country’s Standard One classrooms. New entrants numbered around 800,000, and another 300,000 were repeating. Eight years later, only 267,330 learners made it to Standard 8 and sat the exam. There is a reason to believe that completion and survival rates will gradually improve. We should therefore anticipate far greater numbers of learners who complete primary school, and will be looking for secondary school spaces.

We could try adopting a double shift system, currently utilised by only 4 percent of secondary schools, but the quality of the education offered would be hugely compromised. We already have the evidence for this. The gap between internal, external and ODeL students in this year’s Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) examination results is alarming. Whereas internal candidates passed at a rate of 85.5 percent, the pass rate for external candidates is 53.8 percent. That is a 31-percentage difference. It is worse for Open Distance and eLearning students, whose pass rate is 47 percent, a 38 percent gap with internal students. These differences point to huge inequalities in school conditions and resources available to the different categories of secondary school students.

Considering that in the 59 years since independence, we have managed to construct 1,283 secondary schools, and only 918 are public, Malawi’s hope for expanding secondary education access lies in alternative means of provision. Of particular interest is Open Distance and eLearning. In 2020, the Ministry of Education established two new directorates, namely Open Distance and eLearning (DODeL), and Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI). Between these two new directorates, the Ministry of Education is developing new strategies to bring new ways of thinking and operating to solve the serious bottlenecks that have hamstrung the country’s education system for decades. That is where there are realistic chances that access to quality secondary school education can be widened, in the 7 years remaining to 2030.

The human capital development imperative to provide secondary and further education to more Malawians is overwhelming. The 2018 Population and Housing Census revealed that only 7.1 percent of Malawian adults have a Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) or its equivalent. Put differently, 92.9 percent of adult Malawians do not have a secondary school qualification. The census also reported that only 2.9 percent of adult Malawians have acquired tertiary education.

As the country’s struggles to make education available to more Malawians, a more poignant question will be on the type of education that should be provided. And this is the right time to be asking this question. The Malawi Institute of Education, the country’s national curriculum centre, is embarking on national consultations as part of a curriculum review for primary, secondary and teacher education. There are a lot of issues that the curriculum review process needs to look at, but the topmost three, in my view, are the Malawi 2063 vision, recent health and climate emergencies, and the role of technology in education.

The Malawi 2063 vision and it’s First Ten Year Implementation Plan (MIP-1) are very important developments, especially the three pillars (agriculture, industrialisation, and urbanisation) and the seven enablers. Each of the seven enablers is crucial and needs to be incorporated into the curriculum, but two of them offer a starting point for the education system, namely mindset change, and human capital development.

The past three years have been characterised by health and climate emergencies, including the Covid-19 pandemic, a cholera outbreak, and devastating cyclones. The education system needs to incorporate content that will prepare young Malawians for emergencies such as these, in order to prevent, manage, and address them. The hope of human capital development and the resultant demographic dividend is that of freeing the mind and unleashing the potential of each individual to contribute to society.

Technology use in education can enable a lot of learning, but it can also cause a lot of harm. We need to weigh the costs and benefits of incorporating advanced technology at every level of the curriculum. The curriculum needs to provide knowledge on the positive and negative effects of technology use in education, so that young Malawians have the knowledge for making the best choices. As the title of the 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report, released in July, 2023, aptly puts it - Technology in Education: A Tool on Whose Terms?

Ultimately, we need to be realistic as to what a curriculum review can do and cannot do. The curriculum process needs to be seen as only part of a very complex educational equation. We can have a great curriculum, but if it is not properly resourced, and if teachers are not adequately educated and motivated, the curriculum can achieve little. The broader social, economic and political milieu goes a long way in determining what a curriculum can achieve for a society.

Malawi needs an education system that prepares students for current challenges, but also for future problems unknown today. Therefore curriculum and pedagogy need to embrace knowledges, skills, attitudes and values that will enable graduates to think critically and creatively, to be innovative, to have uMunthu, to promote peace and wellbeing, and to help propel Malawi towards becoming the inclusively wealthy, industrialised and self-reliant nation we aspire to be.

Spirit of Transformation: Making Teaching a Prestigious Profession in Malawi

On 6th July, 2023, both The Nation and Daily Times newspapers carried a story on teacher shortages in Malawi's education system. Both papers quoted Secretary for Education, Mrs Chikondano Mussa, as saying the country's secondary schools were short of 30,000 teachers, and primary schools were short of 35,000 teachers.

The country's teacher training colleges, which train primary school teachers, have an estimated bed capacity of between 9,000 and 10,000. Currently primary school teachers undergo a two-year certificate programme, and an estimated 5,000 new teachers graduate each year (actual figures differ from year to year due to various factors).

The government has been unable to recruit new teachers over the past five years, and lately they have resorted to recruiting what they are calling "auxiliary teachers", paid K80,000 (approx. $75) per month, on yearly contracts. The International Monetary Fund's Extended Credit Facility conditionalities prevent Malawi from recruiting the civil servants that it needs. There is some good news this year, as both The Nation and Daily Times reported on 6th July. Government will be able to recruit 3,000 new primary school teachers, and another 3,000 new secondary school teachers. Given government's inability to recruit any teachers over the past five years, and albeit the small number, this is a positive development.

The current estimate of 5,000 new teachers graduating every year means it would take six years to train the 30,000 teachers that make the current primary school teacher shortage. The Ministry's statistics show that 2,141 primary school teachers left the profession in the 2021/2022 school year. The commonest reason was retirement - voluntary, mandatory, and, interestingly, by "public demand."

The National Education Sector Investment Plan (NESIP) 2020-2030 estimates that the country will need 118,314 by 2030 in order to reach a 1:60 qualified teacher-pupil ratio. Covid-19 forced half a million learners out of primary school, which, inadvertently, improved the teacher-pupil ratio to 1:62, pushing it very close to the policy target nine years ahead of schedule. However, the truth of the matter is that we need to retire this policy target. It is archaic. It first appeared in the country’s education policy in 2008, as an admission that it was proving impossible to achieve the 1:40 teacher-pupil ratio proposed in Vision 2020. So 1:60 was proposed as an intermediate target, to be reached by 2018. It did not happen.

We need a new, more ambitious policy target. Countries who rank as having the best education systems in the world aim for small classes, even down to 15 learners per class. That may be impossible for us, but as the historic Transforming Education Summit at the 2022 United Nations General Assembly called on member states, transforming education systems requires setting ambitious targets.

One important, transformative policy proposal in the NESIP 2020-2030 is to change the entry-level qualification to teach in primary school from a certificate to a diploma/degree. Going by the NESIP projection of 118,314 teachers needed by 2030, and probably several thousands more if we factor in attrition, population growth, and a more ambitious teacher-pupil ratio, there actual number of teachers who need to be upgraded is much bigger. The current model of relying on bed capacity in the public and private teacher training colleges will not be able to deliver the more than 17,000 teachers per year who need to upgrade between now and 2030.

On Friday 14th July, 2023, Unicaf University launched a new Bachelor of Education in Primary Education programme, for Malawian primary school teachers. As a fully online teacher preparation programme, it has been designed to help towards the Malawi Government’s ambition to upgrade the entry level qualification for primary school teachers, and to do so at scale. The programme was launched at Chatuwa Primary School, in Area 18B, in the city of Lilongwe. The Minister of Education, Hon. Madalitso Kambauwa Wirima, was represented by Dr. Levis Eneya, Director of Higher Education in the Ministry. The Secretary for Education, Mrs Chikondano Mussa, was represented by Dr. Zizwa Msukuma, Director of Teacher Education and Development in the Ministry.

Below are the remarks I made at the launch, edited for purposes of the blog. I explained the rationale behind the programme, the process and the design, and how we hope it can contribute towards the transformation of the teaching profession in Malawi. I titled my remarks “Spirit of Transformation: Making Teaching a Prestigious Profession in Malawi.”

[Speech]

I want to start by sharing a brief story of how I became a primary school teacher. I am one of 4,000 teachers who were trained through the Malawi Special Teacher Education Programme, MASTEP. It ran from December 1989 to July 1993. Our postings came toward the end of the year 1993. In January 1994, at the beginning of the second term, I reported at the Dedza District Education Office. I was posted to a school in Dedza West, on the border with Mozambique. To get to the school, there was a bus that went in that direction once a day, but from the bus stop, there was another long distance, by bicycle. So, I was advised to drop off at the bus stop, walk to a nearby school, and ask to borrow a bicycle. I did as advised. The school was kind enough to ask a Standard 8 learner to accompany me. So I got on the bicycle, with the student on the carrier. I remember at one point asking the boy, how far do we still have to go? “He pointed at a range of hills in the distance. “See those hills in the distance? The school is behind those hills.”

We arrived at the school towards noon. I informed the headteacher that I was not staying yet; I needed to go back and get my belongings before returning to report for duties and start my job. We cycled back, just in time for me to catch the bus on its way back to Dedza boma. Instead of picking up my belongings and reporting at the school, I came to the Ministry Headquarters here in Lilongwe, to ask to be transferred to Zomba, where my parents stayed and worked. Why? I was looking for an opportunity to continue with my studies. It would be easier to do that in Zomba than in Dedza. My request was not granted, but I was allowed to transfer to Ntcheu instead. Four years later, in 1998, my dream of further education materialized.

I started with that story because, were that scenario to repeat itself today, I would not reject my posting to a remote school in Dedza, or anywhere in the country. I would accept it, because I would not need to go to a city school in order to pursue further studies. The Bachelor of Education in Primary Education programme that we have developed at Unicaf University, which is being launched today, has been designed exactly for the kind of teacher I was in 1994. It has also been designed for anyone who would like to become a primary school teacher anywhere in Malawi. The desire for Malawian primary school teachers to have diplomas and degrees as the entry-level qualification has a long history. In the 2008-2018 National Strategy for Teacher Education and Development (NSTED), the plan was to start with headteachers, Primary Education Advisers, Teacher Training College lecturers, and District Education Managers. For TTC lecturers and District Education Managers, this was achieved. In the National Education Sector and Investment Plan (NESIP) 2020-2030, the plan has now extended to primary school teachers. And this is where Unicaf University has stepped in, to support this national policy and help make it a reality.

As the Ministry’s most recent statistics show, there were 84,798 primary school teachers in the country in 2022. At least 800 of these teachers already had a diploma or a degree in education. That leaves more than 83,000 teachers who need to be upgraded. The NESIP 2020-2030 projects that 118,314 teachers would be needed in order to reach a teacher-pupil ratio of 60 learners per teacher, per classroom by 2030. Considering teacher attrition rates, population growth rates, and the desire for smaller classes as per international standards, the demand for new primary school teachers is obviously larger than these figures suggest. Training all these teachers to diploma and degree levels poses a national headache.

Unicaf University has a state-of-the-art online platform that can enroll students at scale. The BEd in Primary Education programme that we have developed will enroll anyone who would like to become a primary school teacher, and also primary school teachers who would like to upgrade their qualifications to diploma and degree level.

The programme provides three innovations made possible only by online technology, not available in traditional face-to-face programmes.

1. First, upgrading teachers will not have to leave their duty station and teaching responsibilities to go to a university. All the curriculum and content materials are online. Students just need a computer, or laptop, or tablet or a smartphone and an Internet connection.

2. Second, Teaching Practice will not need relocation, whether for upgrading teachers or generic students. This modality therefore allows for an extended Teaching Practice, beyond the limits of a face-to-face programme. In our programme, the Teaching Practice for upgrading teachers is one full year, while for generic students, it is two years.

3. The third innovation made possible by the online platform is that student teachers, both generic students and upgrading teachers, will be able to put theory to practice immediately. They will not have to wait to finish college courses, before going into the classroom for Teaching Practice.

There are two other innovations. The programme requires student teachers to conduct Child Study in Year 3, and Action Research in Year 4. The Child Study will involve the study of the cognitive and social development of a learner for one full year (Year 3). The Action Research component will require student teachers to identify a problem in classroom practice, or in the school, and spend their final year researching solutions to that problem.

International research on Teacher Education consistently shows that student teachers who spend up to one year in Teaching Practice are more satisfied with their preparation as teachers, and are viewed by their colleagues and headteachers as better prepared. The research further shows that teachers prepared through this model are also more likely to enter the profession upon completion, and to stay in the profession. In Malawi, Teaching Practice runs for one or two school terms, at most.

To develop the programme, we engaged in extensive consultations and research. We had more than fifteen meetings and stakeholder forums with the relevant directorates in the Ministry, and with stakeholders who included teachers, headteachers, teacher educators, Primary Education Advisers, District Education Managers, academics, civil society, and Development Partners, among others. We benchmarked against peer institutions locally, and also internationally. We studied previous teacher education programmes in Malawi, including MASTEP and MIITEP, and the current IPTE programme. We also consulted top-ranked teacher preparation programmes in other countries.

The product of that process is a programme that will produce a well-prepared and highly qualified primary school teacher in a 21st century Malawi. They will learn the foundations of education, comprising historical, philosophical, and ethical perspectives in education. They will encounter sociological and psychological perspectives in education; academic communication and critical thinking, as well as curriculum theory and practice, and inclusive classroom management.

They will learn all the content that comprises the primary school curriculum, and the attendant teaching and assessment methods. Student teachers will also learn how to teach peace education, citizenship education, and intercultural education. They will tackle climate change and sustainable development challenges, leadership and management, and evidence-informed decision making in education policy. The programme aims to produce teachers who will use creative and innovative thinking to solve classroom and school problems. They will learn how to use digital technology for teaching and learning, in addition to courses in Business Management, Entrepreneurship, and Financial Literacy.

I was looking at the class that sat this year’s Standard 8 exams, the Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) Examinations. When that class entered Standard 1 eight years ago, in the 2015/2016 school year, their enrollment was an estimated 1.1 million learners. This year, the number that sat the PSLCE exam was 276,052 learners. Over the 8-year period between 2015 and 2023, more than 823,000 learners from this cohort, did not make it. That is 75 percent; or three out of four learners. This is a serious challenge to the human capital development agenda of this country. We have designed a programme whose graduating teachers will have a deeper understanding of national challenges such as these, and the role of teachers in helping to find lasting solutions.

As the numbers of teachers wanting to upgrade, and of young Malawians wanting to enter the teaching profession grow, there will be a need to educate a new cohort of teacher educators to produce new teachers in our teacher training institutions. Unicaf University has existing Masters, Ph.D., and Doctor of Education programmes to meet this need. Our university offers a holistic and comprehensive online ecosystem of teacher education and development from undergraduate to postgraduate levels. Our postgraduate programmes in education contribute to education research, policy and practice at national and international levels. Our postgraduate students research difficult problems in the education systems of Malawi and other countries around the world.

The BEd in Primary Education programme being launched today is going to contribute to national aspirations to make the teaching profession special and attractive. As we all recognize, the teaching profession is the foundation of all professions. At the historic Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, held during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, His Excellency the State President, Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, presented Malawi’s National Statement of Commitment towards transforming education in Malawi by 2030. With regard to the role of teachers in that transformation, here is what the President said: “Malawi’s aspirations for teachers … include the transformation of the teaching profession to make it prestigious, autonomous, trusted, and accountable.”

At Unicaf University, we believe that the BEd in Primary Education programme will contribute towards those aspirations. There is one important implication to the aspiration to the make teaching profession prestigious and attractive, as is stated in the National Statement of Commitment. It means transforming the education system, and the teaching profession, so that Malawi’s brightest secondary school students, those who score Six Points (distinctions) at Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination, should be able to choose to become primary school teachers, because they know they will be joining a prestigious profession. That is why it is important that a diploma/degree in primary education is becoming the entry-level qualification, as per the NESIP 2020-2030. And teachers should not stop there. They should be able to continue on to postgraduate qualifications, while staying within the teaching profession and helping to transform it.

As I conclude my remarks, it is in that spirit of transformation, that our programme has been designed; to help make teaching a prestigious profession in Malawi. In so doing, we hope this programme will contribute towards Malawi’s long-term ambitions, including the 2030 agenda, and the Malawi 2063 vision.

Stories of Ubuntu today; Hope for humanity tomorrow

Below is text of a speech I gave to students at Dzaleka Community Day Secondary School, on 14th January, 2022. On this day, Unicaf University (Malawi) presented awards to three Dzaleka CDSS students who won first (Joyce Bahati), second (Pacifique Imara Simbi) and third (Zawadi Ombeni) prizes in an essay competition that Unicaf University organised.

Dzaleka CDSS is ran by Jesuit Refugee Services, who on this day were represented by their Schools Coordinator, Yamiko Kawale. Also present was the Deputy Headteacher, Jean Mvuthe

I stand before you today, on behalf of the Vice Chancellor of Unicaf University, who is unable to be here himself, due to other equally important matters. There are two purposes for my speech today. The first purpose is to thank you for the essays you wrote and the stories you told in those essays. The second purpose is to encourage you to keep telling and writing your stories as a way of imagining the future we want, a future based on the values of Ubuntu.

I will first say a few things about myself, before turning to what I loved about the three essays that won. I will then speak about the importance of education in your lives in imagining the future we want for ourselves and for the world. I will conclude by encouraging you to continue reading, writing and imagining a better world; a world which values the philosophy of Ubuntu.

My name is Steve Sharra, and I am an Associate Professor of Education at Unicaf University. I share something with you the students and the teachers here. When I was in secondary school, my biggest desire was to become a creative writer. I started writing when I was in Form 2, and have continued to this day. When I finished my Form Four, I went to Lilongwe Teachers College, where I trained to become a primary school teacher. So I became both a writer/storyteller, and also a teacher. These two preoccupations continue to define who I am to this day.

When I read the three stories that won the essay writing competition, my mind went back to my secondary school days. In your stories, I saw the unmistakable power of reflection on the present state of the world, as seen through the eyes of secondary school students. I heard the deep desire to help solve today’s social, political and cultural problems. I felt the honest, personal conversations with the future in both its past and present forms, and the uncertainty that hangs over our lives today. I also sensed, in the stories, the value of Ubuntu which defines who we are. We are, because of others. In Ubuntu we say “You are, therefore I am.” Which means our main purpose in this world is to help others. That is how we will create a better world without war, violence, poverty, and suffering.

The stories you wrote show that you the students of Dzaleka CDSS, who are the youth of Dzaleka Refugee Camp and the villages that surround it, have a lot of talent, and a lot of concern about the problems in the community, in the country, and in the world. The stories also demonstrate the passion you have about solving the problems of today and creating a better tomorrow.

Dzaleka Refugee Camp has many stories to tell, some painful, and some beautiful. I was here at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in November 2021, for the Tumaini Festival. It was my first time attending the festival, whose very name, Tumaini means “hope”. I met Tresor Mpauni, the founder of the festival, and took a picture with him. What Tresor has achieved with the Tumaini Festival teaches us a lesson in hope. A lesson that with hope, our current problems should not define our future.

There are many other beautiful stories from Dzaleka Refugee Camp, and from Dzaleka CDSS. In October 2021, Dzaleka CDSS won the National Schools Science Fair, held at Kamuzu Academy. Over 40 schools participated, including some of the best and most expensive schools in Malawi. Dzaleka CDSS beat them all and won this competition. We heard about Justin Waka, who was in Form 3 here at the time. Justin developed software that can reduce traffic accidents, a fascinating invention that should make a huge difference on the roads of the country.

While in the headteacher’s office this morning, we saw all those trophies you have won in the last few years; beating all the schools in the country in science, agriculture, and French. Congratulations for all these achievements.

All these stories show the power of the human spirit. They show that when given the opportunity, and the resources, human beings can overcome many of the obstacles that prevent them from enjoying their rights and enhancing their talents. These stories also show that you, the young people of Dzaleka Refugee Camp, and the surrounding communities, are ready to participate in and contribute to the future of not only this country, but the world.

And to prepare for that future, as the stories you wrote indicate, education is very important. The school you are attending is a place that should give you hope for tomorrow, because education is the best preparation for the future.

I would like to conclude by encouraging you to continue seeking further education, to continue reading, to continue writing, and to continue being hopeful for a better tomorrow. A tomorrow based on the values of Ubuntu and helping others.

Thank you very much!

Teachers and Malawi’s development goals: Thoughts for World Teachers Day 2022

It’s only Wednesday, but it has been a busy week in Malawi’s education space. On Sunday 2^nd October the Minister of Education, Hon. Agnes NyaLonje and the Executive Secretary of the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB), Professor Dorothy Nampota, released the results of the 2022 Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) examinations. The next day, on Monday 3^rd October the Ministry announced that it would be recruiting 4,125 auxiliary teachers from the Initial Primary Teacher Education (IPTE) Cohort 13, and some from cohort 14. And today, 5^th October, is World Teachers Day. Social media worldwide and in Malawi has been awash with messages of celebratory goodwill for teachers.

The most dominant news in Malawi, however, has been the PSLCE results and the two top performers, a girl and a boy, who both got 448 points out of 500. Mirriam Kachala, 13, is from Chipiloni Primary School in Zomba, and Joseph Magombo, 12, is from Nankhaka Primary School in Lilongwe. Their secondary education will be supported by scholarships from Press Trust Limited. Other well-wishers have also been donating sums of money to support the two students beyond secondary school.

Mirriam Kachala. Photo from Ministry of Education. 

Joseph Magombo. Photo from Ministry of Education

Many were pleasantly surprised to learn that out of the 260,295 students who sat the exam, 216,664 passed, representing 83.24 percent. Many were equally dismayed to learn that only 89,404 students have been selected to public secondary schools, representing 41.62 percent, an improvement of 4 percent over last year’s selection rate of 37 percent. The pass rate for girls (78.33 percent) is ten percent lower than boys (88.21 percent), while the pass rate for special needs students (72.85 percent) is 11 percent lower than the other students.  

This year’s cohort entered Standard One in the 2014-2015 academic year. The 2015 Education Statistics Bulletin indicates that there were 1,061,868 learners in Standard One in that year. 

The math shows that 801,573 learners did not make it to Standard 8, having dropped out, or having been held back to repeat. That represents 75 percent of the cohort. Put differently, three out of four learners who entered Standard One in 2014-2015 did not make it to Standard 8 by the year 2022. These are disturbing numbers, but they are not new. We already know, from the 2018 Population and Housing Census, that amongst our 14-17 year olds, the official secondary school age, three out of four are not in school.

The numbers will improve in the near future, owing to a number of projects in the education sector. The Secondary Education Expansion for Development (SEED) project, funded by USAID, is constructing and expanding 250 secondary schools. Assuming that 250 new secondary schools were constructed today, and each accommodated 600 new students, we would improve secondary school enrolment by 150,000, which would be enough to accommodate all the 127,000 Standard 8 learners who have not been selected to secondary school this year. More secondary schools are being constructed and expanded through other projects also, including the European Union-funded Improving Secondary Education in Malawi (ISEM) II, and the World Bank-funded Equity with Quality Learning at Secondary (EQUALS) project. As I observed in an earlier piece, progress has been an issue, and there have been substantial delays.

The news announced on Monday, about the recruitment of 4,125 auxiliary teachers to go into primary schools, did not receive the same enthusiasm as the release of the PSLCE results. Auxiliary teachers are slowly becoming the norm as the government is unable to recruit full time teachers. This should not be allowed to continue. As of August this year, 17,438 primary school teachers have been trained, from IPTE Cohort 13 which graduated in 2020, to Cohort 16, which sat their final examinations in August 2022. The government is unable to recruit these teachers on a full time basis largely due to a wage bill cap that is part of a policy regimen of conditionalities that come with the Extended Credit Facility that Malawi is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund.

The public only gets snippets of the ongoing negotiations, making it difficult to know exactly why the government needs to observe particular conditionalities. Memories of 2011 and 2012 are still fresh in the minds of many, when then President Bingu wa Mutharika openly disagreed with the IMF on conditionalities. We all know what happened to the Malawi economy, and there have been near reminisces lately.

Today, on World Teachers Day, it is important to think about the role of teachers towards achieving Malawi’s national goals. During the recent United Nations General Assembly summit in New York, world leaders made pledges towards transforming education in their countries and globally. Most pledges made mentioned the central role of teachers. Malawi’s President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera presented a Statement of Malawi’s commitments, which included making education mandatory for every child from early childhood through to secondary education. The Government of Malawi, through the President, also pledged, among others, to ensure 100 percent enrollment rate in primary school, 100 percent primary school completion rate, 100 percent transition rate to secondary school, and 100 percent secondary school completion rate.

It is difficult to imagine how Malawi's commitments to transforming education can be fulfilled without adequate teachers in primary and secondary school. As enrollments improve, as they are expected to, more and more young people will be in school, and more and more teachers will be needed to teach them. There has to be a solution to the impasse caused by the IMF conditionalities, otherwise we should forget about achieving any of the education goals by 2030, or, let alone, 2063.

 

 

Why Malawi’s education sector could be on the cusp of change

On 5^th April, 2022, Minister of Education, Hon. Agnes NyaLonje presented a ministerial statement to Parliament on the status of government projects in the primary and secondary education sub-sectors. The statement paints the grim reality of problems gripping the country’s education system, but it also shows that if we can follow through on current policy plans, strategies, and the national vision, we might be on the cusp of change over the foreseeable future.

It is nothing short of a national scandal, as we have known since the 2018 population and housing census, that 85 percent of 14-17 year-old Malawians are out of school. It is deeply troubling that 62 percent of students who pass the Standard 8 examination have nowhere else to go because our public secondary school capacity accommodates only 38 percent of those who pass. Such is the precarity and fragility of our education and social protection systems that 450,000 primary school learners (8 percent) have dropped out of school since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. For secondary school students, that number is 37,000 (9 percent).

Before the cyclones between January and March this year, 10 percent of primary school learners were using temporary classrooms, while 25 percent were using open air classrooms. According to the Ministry of Education, the cyclones affected 476 schools in 22 education districts. There is a deficit of 4.4 million desks for both primary and secondary schools. At the primary school level, 75 percent of learners do not have a desk.

There is progress being made, but it is slow. The government has been constructing three teacher training colleges, but four years since construction started, not even one has been completed. Indications are that all three will be completed this year, which will be a great development. The Secondary Education Expansion for Development (SEED) project, which aims to expand or construct 250 secondary schools, started in 2018, and is expected to end in 2023. With one year to go, the project has constructed only 16 new secondary schools, and expanded only 30. Hopefully there will be an extension, owing to the delays this important project has encountered.

There are positive signs on the horizon, however. There are ambitious and forward looking policies and strategies that, if strictly followed and implemented, could lead to tremendous improvements in the system by 2030 and beyond. The MIP-1, the implementation plan for the first 10 years of the Malawi 2063 vision, has made several strategic provisions. By 2025 all primary schools are expected to have an Early Childhood Education program to ensure that every child has access to public pre-school. Currently only 28 percent of our children have access to pre-school, and these are mostly privately owned centres in urban areas. Access to early childhood education will help most children enter primary school well prepared, and succeed.

Currently about 800,000 children enter Standard One every year, and only about 300,000 survive to Standard 8. This explains why 67 percent of Malawians aged 15 and above do not have any school qualification, according to the 2018 population and housing census. There are far more Malawians outside the school system, than those in school, especially those of adolescent and young adult ages. The budget has nothing for them. The MIP-1 provides for community learning centres, which would address this problem.

There are three other really important strategic interventions the government is undertaking. The Ministry of Education is introducing Open, Distance and eLearning across the entire education system. This could unlock access for millions of Malawians who are denied an opportunity for education especially at secondary and tertiary levels. The Ministry is also developing a new science, technology and innovation strategy that, together with the ODeL strategy, could solve major problems of access, quality, research and innovation across the education system.

There is also a National Teacher Policy that aims to transform the teaching profession and make it central to improving the quality of education and enhance human development capabilities. Once launched, the teaching profession may not be the same. At the heart of Malawi 2063 and the MIP-1 are education, knowledges and competencies to deliver on the aspirations both in the short term and in the long term. That is why one of the seven pillars of Malawi 2063 is human capital development, which others prefer to call human capabilities to ward off the exploitative scent of neoliberal thinking. The education system, and teachers in particular, are therefore central to the achievement of the national vision.

So what we really need to do, as a nation, is to make sure we all understand the vision we have set for ourselves. Even more important is to develop a strong implementation mindset to ensure that we follow through on what we have pledged to do. We should put behind us the era of developing brilliant policies and strategies but failing to implement them. The Malawi 2063 and the MIP-1 are brilliant, well thought out documents. But they need to be seen as living documents that can respond to shifting ground. They also require vigilance and determination, especially in the governance and public sector performance areas.

What is most crucial about the new policies and strategies is that they need to aim at growing the economy exponentially, for the country to be able to start financing and implementing the national vision in the mid-term and in the long term. The current education sector investment plan for the period 2020 to 2030 envisages that for 2022, the education sector requires MK1 trillion. The 2022-2023 budget passed in Parliament recently has allocated MK462 billion to the education sector; not even half of what is needed. This is a problem of the national economy and governance systems.

Currently there is about K153 billion ($180 million) from development partners going into the primary education sub-sector, and about K204 billion ($240 million), also from development partners, being spent on the secondary education sub-sector. Development projects in the education sector are still heavily dependent on donor aid, largely due to the size of our economy which is incapable of funding huge infrastructure projects. There is hope that the MIP-1 strategy might help to begin to change things.

The massive corruption and theft that have now become a daily front page routine pose an existential threat to the national vision, but one we can overcome, if we are determined enough.

I dream of a teaching profession that attracts the best and brightest motivated young Malawians

A TV Station interviewing a 2021 Malawian outstanding teacher (Photo credit: © Steve Sharra)

The Lamp Magazine interview by Joseph Kayira, May 2021

JK: The results of the retaken 2020 MSCE examination show that 81,017 candidates out of 138,310 have failed representing 41.42 percent, a pass rate said to be the worst in a decade. What is your take on this?

SS: The poor results of the 2020 MSCE examinations were shocking and disappointing, but they cannot be said to have been unforeseen. It would have taken a miracle for the majority of students to have excelled after schools were closed for six months, and then the exams were cancelled midway through due to massive leakages and cheating. As the elders would have put it, this was “muvi woyang’anira”. It was heartwarming to see some students still going ahead to score six points and others with several distinctions, so all is not lost.

JK: What’s your opinion on some experts who think the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) should take responsibility for this unfortunate situation where these 81,017 candidates find themselves in.

SS: MANEB’s responsibility is to assess students, not to teach them. What these results have done is to hold up a mirror for us to see how our public secondary school system is performing.

JK: Was it not proper for MANEB to consider reducing the passing rate in view of the Covid-19 induced holiday forcing students stay home for some time?

SS: Reducing the passing mark would compromise the quality of education because it would depict a false image of how our public secondary school system is performing. We would end up lulling ourselves into a false sense of satisfaction; sending to universities and into employment people whose educational qualifications would not be congruent with their true level of knowledge and skills. Perhaps MANEB could have asked the Ministry of Education to delay the exams by another month or two, to allow teachers and students a little more time to prepare. But reducing the pass mark would have had undesirable consequences. The solution is to systematically study the conditions in the system, and address them.

 JK: Others think MANEB punished MSCE candidates for the examination leakage hence the poor results.

SS: If that were true, it would be unfortunate. An examining authority cannot set an exam whose purpose is to make students fail. It would entail examining students on content that was beyond their level and scope. That would be not only unethical, it would also be irresponsible. I stand to be corrected, but I hope that is not what happened.

JK: How best can MANEB handle similar situations in future to avoid the 2020 examination saga?

SS: There was a promise to carry out investigations, both internal and external. I am not aware of any reports that have been released in that regard. If the investigations were systematic and meticulous, then MANEB and the Ministry must have identified where things went wrong, and why. It was reassuring to see that the re-run happened without leakages and cheating, so one hopes whatever lessons were learned from the investigations were applied. It will take consistent due diligence to ensure that the 2020 scenario does not repeat itself in future. The integrity of our education system hinges on the conduct and credibility of the national examination process.

JK: Do you think MANEB has all the support it needs from its stakeholders to properly prepare and manage examinations?

SS: In recent years MANEB was able to demonstrate professionalism and credibility, which may be taken to mean that it has been getting the support it needs from key stakeholders. The national examination process has many layers of complexity, and requires the support and collaboration of many players. Achieving success in such a complex undertaking takes all the players sharing the ultimate goal, that of improving our education system and upholding its integrity.

JK: For months teachers, through Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM), have been fighting government [Ministry of Education] asking for risk allowance in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. Were they justified to go on strike for that reason?

SS: There are two ways of looking at this. First, the teachers’ demands for covid-19 risk allowances were made in a political economy context where “allowances” have come to symbolize benefits and entitlements that have in the end created inequalities that are eating at the core of the country’s social fabric. Thus “allowances” operate in a culture where the elite accumulate for themselves benefits, privileges and power, at the expense of everyone else. That self-accumulation has been blatantly evident in the way covid-19 relief funds have been handled. People who were not at risk to the corona virus because of the nature of their work helped themselves to those funds.

The second way of looking at this question it through the prism of risk itself, real or perceived. Teachers were considered to be at some level of risk, and therefore deserving of allowances, but that decision was changed without explanation. Malawian classrooms in the public schools are so overcrowded it is impossible to achieve the social distance needed to keep away the virus. And young people are known to be carriers of corona virus without exhibiting symptoms. Classrooms are enclosed spaces and epidemiologists have pointed out this as a significant factor in the spread of the virus. Teachers and learners spend long hours inside those enclosed spaces. Teachers were not given PPE; instead, they were made to make their own masks at training sessions where even the money meant for their lunch allowances was swindled.

JK: How should the culture of allowances be handled in this country? Were teachers right or wrong to ask for risk allowance?

SS: When testing for corona virus reached boarding secondary schools, the numbers of students who were found positive were alarming. In some schools the infection rate was fifty percent. Teachers especially in boarding schools were justifiably concerned about their safety from the virus. By the way many teachers use their personal funds to make purchases for their learners and for their classrooms. This happens all over the world. Giving them the allowance would have been a reasonable gesture of appreciation for what teachers do, much of which is thankless. And some would use the money to buy PPE.

The injustice in how the allowances were handled was blatant, and it would have been naïve to expect teachers to just watch and keep quite. That is the context in which we should understand the teachers’ demands for risk allowances.

We all await the report and recommendations from the taskforce that the president announced to look into the issue of allowances, procurement and employment contracts, headed by the Vice President. Hopefully that process will bring sanity to the corrosive culture that the allowances syndrome has created.

JK: Wouldn’t you agree with those who are criticizing teachers for not being sensitive enough to go on strike at a time when the learners needed them most and at a time the country was, and still is in a crisis?

SS: In contexts where injustices are rampant, people tend to be strategic in deciding when to make their demands heard. If Malawi were a society where people were treated with dignity and respect, and people’s pleas for recognition were listened to, the teachers’ demands would have been considered insensitive. But we have created a society where the elite feel entitled to all the privileges and accumulate for themselves benefits and perks. The teachers were trying to make their voices heard in such a context. It is unfortunate that this happened when the education system was at its worst moment due to the covid-19 pandemic, but given everything we have seen, one can understand where the teachers are coming from. 

 

Minister of Education, Hon. Agnes NyaLonje, awarding a 2021 outstanding teacher

(Photo credit: © Steve Sharra)

JK: Do you think teachers have better working conditions in this country? How is Malawi ranked when it comes to remuneration of teachers in this region?

SS: When we talk about teachers’ working conditions, we talk about several things. We talk about school and classroom conditions, where teachers spend a lot of their time. The infrastructure alone needs to be appealing, hygienic, and fit for purpose. Teacher-pupil ratios need to be reasonable. Workloads also need to be reasonable so that workers can have a good work-life balance. Education relies on equipment and materials to facilitate teaching and learning. Then there are issues of remuneration and benefits. 

In Malawi teachers’ conditions, as defined, are not conducive. Classes are so large it takes a lot of work to manage them. Much of the infrastructure, especially in rural areas, is below standard. Teaching and learning materials are a big problem. In her report on the 2020 MSCE results, the Minister of Education, Hon. Agnes NyaLonje, stated that students in lower secondary classes are sharing one textbook to five students. In the upper secondary classes, that is Forms 3 and 4, the situation is so bad that up to 25 students are sharing one textbook. What that means is that many students are going the whole school year without touching a school book. That is a sure recipe for the disaster unfolding before our eyes.

There is also the important aspect of professional growth and career path, which is a huge bottleneck in our educational system. Many teachers work hard over many years but are never rewarded through promotions or other modes of recognition. Many times promotions are politicized. Many teachers are frustrated, and morale has been low for a very long time, it has become a chronic problem. There are now efforts to institutionalise a performance management system, a teacher management strategy, and a continuous professional development framework that should make career progression systematic and realistic. Once that system is established, it should restore hope in the profession and make it attractive again. It should also help retain teachers.

In terms of remuneration, teachers’ salaries are calibrated within the civil service salary structure, and teachers start at one level higher. However, salaries are just one part of the remuneration and privileges ecosystem, and in this regard teachers have the lowest benefits when compared to other sectors in the civil service. In comparative terms with the region, Malawian teachers’ salaries appear to be at par with the region, as far as power purchasing parity is concerned. But Malawi’s economy is in the lower ranks in the region, which puts Malawian teachers also in the lower ranks. Considering the role teachers play in the development of a nation, it is important to give teachers’ remuneration and benefits special consideration. We need to make the teaching profession attractive and appealing to young people. 

JK: How dangerous is the standoff between TUM and government to the welfare of teachers in Malawi?

SS: It is very dangerous. Teaching and learning rely on a lot of factors lining up symmetrically and working in sync. Learners learn best when teachers are motivated, respected and encouraged, and when teachers’ personal welfare and professional aspirations are taken care of. Classrooms are sensitive places that require a teacher who is mentally prepared to teach and is focused on helping students learn. The current atmosphere makes it very difficult for teachers to feel motivated and appreciated. The vitriol coming from certain quarters betrays an ugly underbelly of deep-seated resentment and contempt for teachers. That is very unfortunate.

JK: What should TUM do to puts its house in order for it was apparent during the recent standoff that the centre is no longer holding?

SS: TUM has existed over the decades. It started out as a teachers’ association from the time when schools were run by missionaries, to the time of independence. It has represented the voices of teachers very well over the years. That said, TUM does have issues that it needs to sort out. It needs to be responsive to the needs of its membership, and to be open and transparent. It is the membership that defines an organization, and where it derives its power. It is in listening to and representing the membership that TUM’s significance and influence will grow stronger. There are clear ongoing attempts to weaken and destroy TUM, which shows a lack of understanding of why TUM exists. The leadership of TUM needs to be cautious of attempts to politicize what the organization stands for, and to manipulate how it represents its constituency. These need to be resisted at all costs.

JK: Your final word?

SS: The goals we have set for ourselves for the Malawi we want will not be achieved if we sideline teachers and treat them as second class civil servants. It is teachers who will educate young Malawians and impart to them the skills and mindsets that this country needs to prosper. Teachers have an enormous responsibility in delivering the Malawi we all want. The values with which we treat teachers are the same values teachers will treat learners with. We need to be mindful of this always. I dream of a country that treats the teaching profession, in deed and in action, as the most important profession. I dream of a teaching profession that attracts the best and brightest motivated young Malawians because they understand education as the foundation for building a better Malawi.

Note: A version of this interview appeared in the May 2021 issue of The Lamp magazine.