In solidarity with Malawian teachers: Labour Day thoughts

This May Day (or Labour Day as we call it here) my thoughts are with Malawian teachers and their struggles. In particular my thoughts are with those teachers who defy the odds and make a difference in the lives of their students and in their communities. I would like to share a few stories on these teachers.

In October 2012 I received a Facebook message from someone who introduced himself as James Mitengo, a Standard 4 teacher at Mpeni Junior Primary School in Thyolo. He was looking for opportunities to extend a training programme he had developed on teaching using locally available resources, known in short as Talular. On his own initiative, James had managed to train up to 2,000 teachers in a number of districts in the southern region. He was looking to train more teachers.  Were there organisations that could fund him to extend the trainings to more districts?

I did not know organisations that could offer the funding he was looking for. But I could connect him to an online forum for teachers (Bwalo la Aphunzitsi), where he could network with other teachers. He did not succeed in getting the funding he was looking for, but he was able to achieve something else. He responded to an article I posted on the said forum describing how teachers in the United Kingdom were connecting their classrooms with teachers in Pakistan and Afghanistan. An official in the British Council office in Lilongwe, a fellow member of the forum, got in touch with him and invited him to a training in Liwonde on how the programme works.

James was able to get Mpeni Junior Primary School connected to a school in Scotland, and later to another one in England. But there was another problem. He did not have a laptop, nor did his school. James was able to make contact with fellow Malawian teachers, with the British Council and with schools in the UK using his mobile phone only. It worked, but did not provide his students an opportunity to connect with other students in Malawi or elsewhere. He needed at least a laptop.

I reached out to my network on twitter and facebook, and got a few expressions of interest and some pledges. One of the pledges came from Dr. Lisa Jilk, a friend and former classmate of mine, now a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, United States. She sent James $1,000, with which he was able to buy a laptop. James was now able to use a laptop in his classroom with his students. In July of this year James is going to Scotland to spend two weeks at the partner school. He will train the teachers there on Talular.

Teachers learning how to use a computer. Pic by James Mitengo

Mpeni Junior Primary School has no electricity; the school needs K100,000 (approx US$270) to get connected. There are eleven teachers at the school, but only two teachers’ houses. The school needs more classrooms to accommodate the large numbers of students. But by being creative and persistent, James is slowly developing his school and inspiring students and fellow teachers. He has the drive to reach out and network with other teachers and educators in Malawi and outside. But he is not alone.

In September 2013 I visited Nadzikhale Primary School in Dedza to observe a team of primary education advisers (PEAs) and head teachers conducting school evaluation. They were conducting what is known as School Performance Review, a school evaluation process developed by Link Community Development, which I work for. Nadzikhale school is located in a beautiful part of Dedza. From the school’s open ground you can see a vast open valley that stretches west to east, with blue hills in the distance.

One of the PEAs sat down with the head teacher of the school, Phillip James. I joined them on a bench under a tree shade. I noticed a bicycle leaning against the tree. It belonged to the head teacher, Mr James. It was an old bicycle, visibly worn out with tyres that had seen better days. Phillip told me he had used the bicycle for all the fifteen years he had worked at the school. The school has only two teachers’ houses, with a third house set aside for student teachers in the Open and Distance Learning programme.

Every day of the fifteen years Phillip has taught at Nadzikhale school he has commuted from the neighbouring village using the same bicycle. On this day the mobile phone network was very good, and I was able to go on twitter. Before we left the school I had a direct message in my twitter account. A friend who saw the tweets wrote and said he was touched by the dedication of this teacher. He was going to do something to express his gratitude. It was his conviction that such teachers, who worked hard for many years and never gave up, needed to be appreciated. He sent MK30,000 (approx US$75 in 2013), and today Phillip rides a new bicycle.

Phillip James's old bike and new bike

I have decided to share these two stories above because they defy the ubiquitous image of Malawian teachers who are demoralised and are always complaining of the conditions in which they work. No doubt, many Malawian teachers feel so demoralised they see nothing positive about the profession. And we cannot blame them. But there are a few who are not letting the problems they encounter paralyse them. Not only do they persevere, they actively seek solutions to problems their schools face.

The difference lies in the types of attitudes between teachers who feel hopeless and helpless, and teachers who actively pursue new ideas and seek solutions to problems. Most teachers graduate from teachers college confident that they will make a difference in the school and community they will serve. But many feel overwhelmed by the reality that hits them once they start their jobs.

As I have argued many times before, the model Malawi uses to train primary school teachers needs reform. Currently teachers are trained for two years, spending one year doing course work and one year doing teaching practice, in the residential system. In the open and distance learning system things are a bit different in that the student teachers spend the entire two years doing teaching practice in a school, only going for course work when school is on holiday.

The open and distance learning model was introduced in 1989, and I was in the inaugural class. Our training lasted four years; we did not graduate until September 1993. Throughout those four years I did not feel intellectually challenged by the content. So I went about buying books and novels that I read in my spare time. This was when Malawi had proper bookshops spread out across the country.

Today, much of the training is done through modules written by teacher educators who draw on materials produced by other educationists. There are no peer-reviewed books or journal articles published in a proper academic settings. Lecturers in our teacher training colleges are not required to conduct research and publish. The only new knowledge being introduced in our teacher education system is through donor-funded workshops and projects. None of our universities has active involvement in the education of primary school teachers.

The Deputy Headteacher at Mpeni working on the donated laptop.
Pic by James Mitengo

There were efforts a few years ago to integrate teacher training colleges into public universities so that primary school teachers should be undergoing a more academically-rigorous university-level teacher preparation. I do not know how far that discussion went, as no one mentions it anymore. It has been argued that training primary school teachers up to university diploma or degree level would end up solving the wrong problem – that of teacher shortage in community day secondary schools.

But that problem would only arise if there were no improvements in remuneration and conditions of service in primary schools. Teachers, as is the case with any workers, will go where the pay and conditions of service are better. If salaries and conditions of work in primary schools are made attractive for highly educated teachers, they will stay and will improve the quality of primary school education.

There have been major changes in the teaching profession in Malawi since my days as a teacher. There were no teacher development centres during my day, and inspectors were based at the district office rather than at the zone. Schools now get annual grants for school improvement projects, and the amounts are doubling each year.

But the mentality amongst many teachers remains stuck in a beggar-mindset, possibly because the needs are too great and the pace of change is very gradual. A group of teachers I met in 2013 told me their school had not used their grant from the previous year, and they were about to get a new grant. They had no idea what the funds would be used for; they were appealing for help from “well-wishers”.

We need to develop a system to recognise, support and reward creativity, innovation and hard work amongst our teachers.  Teachers who have innovative ideas need to know that they can be supported and rewarded. In other countries teachers are recognised by national teacher of the year awards at various levels. We need to develop our own system starting at the school level going up to the national level, including primary education advisers and district education managers. That will be the best way of motivating teachers and educators, and injecting authentic pride and dignity into the teaching profession.

uMunthu, Peace and Education: On Malawi's 44th Independence Anniversary

One morning at a school near Lake Chirwa in Zomba in 1972, pupils entering their Standard 8 classroom received the shock of their lives. The portrait of then Life President Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda had been defaced. Someone had drawn into the portrait a pair of spectacles, and had written unsavory comments about the then president. The pupils informed the teacher, who informed the school's head. The head immediately convened a staff meeting. After lengthy deliberations, the school administration agreed on investigating to find out who did it. The Standard 8 teacher went back to the classroom and asked for the culprit to turn himself in. Nobody volunteered any information.

After further deliberations amongst the staff, a decision was reached. Mwandilakwira, a Standard 8 pupil, would be expelled from the school and reported to the then District Education Office (DEO). Mwandilakwira protested his innocence, but the school administration responded by saying since he was the one who sat directly underneath the president’s portrait, he was probably the pupil who did this. Mwandilakwira was ordered never to come back to the school, and his name was reported to the DEO’s office. Mwandilakwira was also told that he was effectively banned from attending school in the entire Malawi.

That was thirty six years ago. Malawi has changed a great deal since then, especially in the last sixteen years. As we celebrate yet another independence anniversary, it is right and proper to ask what 44 years of independence has meant for us as a nation. This particular year I would like to ask this question from the perspective of a teacher as a way of reflecting on the role Malawian teachers play in building the nation and setting the country on a more peaceful and prosperous course.

For me, two things stand out as the most important for a future Malawi, and indeed the world, to have. First, I envision a future Malawi in which the ideals of uMunthu form the basis of our identity, and shape the form that all our endeavors take. Second, I envision a future Malawi that is blessed with peace and social justice and bestows on everyone equal chances of success and opportunities for the affirmation of everyone’s potential and talents. I see uMunthu as an ideal that pervades through these aspirations, knowing that the success of one person in a community is beneficial for, rather than a threat to, the whole community. Our Malawian elders were not wrong when they observed that Mwana wa mnzako ngwako yemwe, ukachenjera manja udya naye (your neighbor's child is your own, his/her success is your success too).

It wasn’t until 2004 that I first started thinking about uMunthu as a serious theme in envisioning the future of Malawi and the world. The day was Saturday, April 17th. The Catholic Diocese of Zomba ordained a new bishop on that day, Rt. Rev. Fr. Thomas Msusa, to take the place of Bishop Allan Chamgwera who had retired. I witnessed the beautifully choreographed and spiritually touching event at the grounds of Zomba Catholic Secondary School. In his speech, Bishop Msusa, who had left Nankhunda Seminary a few months before I set foot there in 1988, spoke of the problems Malawi was facing, and how we needed to “become as one.” He said those words had always been his guiding biblical wisdom from his seminary days. “The African worldview is about living as one family, belonging to God,” he said. “We say ‘I am because we are’, or in Chichewa kali kokha nkanyama, tili awiri ntiwanthu (when you are on your own you are as good as an animal of the wild; when there are two of you, you form a community).”

Listening to the newly ordained Bishop Msusa that afternoon harked my mind back to former Anglican Archbishop of the Diocese of Cape Town in South Africa, Desmond Tutu. A Nobel peace laureate, former Archbishop Desmond Tutu led his country, at the request of then President Nelson Mandela, in the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In his memoirs narrating his reflections on how he experienced the TRC, No Future Without Forgiveness, Archbishop Tutu explains uBuntu as the philosophical essence that propelled the TRC. In the book the former Anglican archbishop offers a list of examples where uBuntu was the driving philosophy for many southern African countries who chose forgiveness over retaliation against white minority regimes upon attaining independence. Included on the list are Zimbabwe, Kenya and Namibia.

Some people point out that South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation process did not solve South Africa’s problems, and instead merely created new ones. While that may be true, with regard to what has been happening in South Africa especially in recent years and in particular this year, it is important not to blame the TRC for something it had no control over. South Africa’s problems are much more complex and difficult to understand than many of us are ready to accept. The failures of recent years belong into the broader global economic order which South Africa has been forced into by institutions with far more power than African governments can ever hope to wield. This is not to exculpate South African elites from blame, as part of the path the country has taken has been a matter of unprincipled choices in times of difficult global dilemmas. Our own country Malawi is caught up in similar influences that promote neoliberal economic competition and privatization, leaving many unable to participate, and therefore bitterly resentful. It is not always that we pause to ask ourselves the roots of the violent crime we witness in our everyday lives right here in Malawi.

Before 2004, I was not even aware that uMunthu had been the subject of serious academic and intellectual inquiry by leading Malawian and African philosophers, theologians, political scientists, and many others. Several Malawians have written entire books on the subject. They include Rev. Dr. Augustine Musopole who in 1994 published a book titled Being Human in Africa: Toward an African Christian Anthropology, Rev. Dr. Harvey Sindima who in 1995 published Africa’s Agenda: The Legacy of Liberalism and Colonialism in the Crisis of African Values, and Dr. Gerald Chigona, who in 2002 published a book titled uMunthu theology: Path of Integral Human Liberation Rooted in Jesus of Nazareth. In addition to the above books, University of Malawi scholars Richard Tambulasi and Happy Kayuni have published an article on uMunthu in Malawian politics during the one-party dictatorship and the first multiparty government. There have also been several newspaper and magazine articles on the topic, as well as performing arts groups and forums using the concept of uMunthu to describe their focus.

In my interviews with several Malawian primary school teachers since 2004, I have learned that uMunthu is a subject fit to be taught in our schools, from Standard 1 all the way to the university. This is especially important for teacher training colleges and other tertiary institutions. The teachers argued that many of Malawi’s problems of structural violence, inequality, exploitation and injustice spring from the absence of uMunthu ideals in the inculcation of values. The education system has a crucial role to play in promoting uMunthu in our society because the violence and injustice we see in our communities is in fact facilitated by the education system’s failure to offer a coherent value system that affirms our humanity and identity.

The presence of rigorously researched and analyzed treatises on the topic of uMunthu, amongst Malawians and other scholars elsewhere is an exhortation for us to make it central in our education system. In my work with Malawian primary teachers over the years, we have explored ways of teaching the values of uMunthu-based peace and social justice, even in learning areas as unlikely as Mathematics.

The consideration to make uMunthu and peace education central features of Malawian education at all levels involves rethinking the ways we train our primary school teachers also. Having been a primary school teacher myself, I have come to appreciate the need to enhance our teacher education process, to align it with the needs of present day Malawi. The two-year teacher training program has been helpful up to this point, but it has become outdated. Today’s and tomorrow’s Malawi needs teachers who are much more highly trained, who are provided the best of what our intellectual heritage has to offer. This requires making our universities an integral part of the training we give our primary school teachers. None of this can be done overnight, but that is no excuse to postpone important decisions and put them off to an unforeseeable future.

Young Malawians are bustling with intellectual energies ready to meet any academic challenges thrown their way. That is what Mwandilakwira proved to those who expelled him and banished him from attaining further education in Malawi.

After staying at home for two years without going to school, Mwandilakwira changed his name and enrolled at another school several kilometers away. There he excelled, and was selected to one of the best secondary schools in Malawi. Today he is the head of an important primary school.

Equipping teachers with the best training we can afford will be part of the process to ensure the type of future we envision for our country. It will enable teachers to assume their important role in society, in ways that empower them to uplift young Malawians, rather than attempt to destroy their future, as was the case with Mwandilakwira in 1972. Let us use the occasion of our independence anniversary to ponder the kind of future, and the kind of peace, we want for Malawi, and how best to plan for them.