Getting MUST right: New university, new opportunity

The pleas from government-sponsored students in Malawi’s public universities for a raise in their monthly allowances seem to be just what this country needed to begin a conversation on how to overhaul the way we fund public universities. The opening of MUST later this year, as announced by Hon. Eunice Kazembe in June, gives the country a chance to recreate the blueprint for how to provide university education.

Government-sponsored students in Malawi’s public universities are not only afforded a free university education, they are “lucratively employed” to pursue a university education, as somebody put it on my facebook wall some weeks ago.  As Minister of Education Hon. Eunice Kazembe explained on MBCTV recently, each government-sponsored student receives up to K400,000 per year in allowances. It is one thing to go to university for free, it is a different thing to be paid in the process.

If MUST will be run in the same business as usual terms as the other universities, then it too risks going through the same disruptions that have come to characterise the already-existing universities. Indications are that a major rethink is underway, going by what Hon. Kazembe and Dr. Emmanuel Fabiano, Vice Chancellor of the University of Malawi, have recently pronounced. Three things stand out as in dire need of a rethink as Malawi prepares to open its fourth public university. These are the much-debated quota system, student allowances, and loans.

Malawi University of Science and Technology. Photo courtesy : Nyasatimes

The reason why the quota system is the most controversial idea in Malawian higher education debates is because of the capacity problems in our universities. We are not moving quickly enough to address this problem. In 2011 a survey of 150 countries repeated what many of us already know, that only 0.3 percent of young Malawians in the 17-22 year age range are actually in university, placing Malawi last on the list. It is not difficult to understand where the low percentage is coming from.

The most recent intake into the University of Malawi, for the 2012/2013 academic year, was 908. The university administered the university entrance exam to 8507 candidates, out of which 6373 candidates passed. The Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) based its 2012/2013 selection on the same University of Malawi entrance exam, and admitted 456 students. The intake for Mzuzu University was 637 students, which includes upgrading students. The total comes to 2,001 students entering into the three existing public universities for the 2012/2013 academic year. The intake for private universities combined is much lower.

TEVETA’s last intake into technical colleges was 1,580, and teacher training colleges take in about 4,000 students annually. Even when we combine nurses’ colleges and other private colleges, the number of college-age Malawians actually in tertiary institutions is still less than 10,000.

The number of students who sat the 2012 Malawi School Certificate Examination was 111, 781. Out of these, 57, 906 passed. This year the universities will invite about 8,500 of these to sit the next entrance exam, but we should not let that number distort the real figure of Malawians who qualify for university education every year. Everyone who passes the MSCE exam demonstrates an intellectual capacity for higher education. That number stood at 57,906 last year.

If MUST is going to avoid the quota quagmire, admission will have to be based on what Limbani Nsapato calls a “win-win university quota selection system.” By this Nsapato means a system that is based on both merit and socio-economic factors that include gender, disability and poverty. This would give students from rural districts of Malawi and from marginalized backgrounds an equal chance of being selected. Currently, these groups stand little chance.

The second thing MUST must get right is the student allowances. The solution is to start by admitting as many students as the university has space for. Students will be asked to pay the full tuition fees. Hon. Kazembe told the nation last week that more than 60% of entering students in our public universities come from wealthy families and can afford the full tuition fees. Those able to pay will pay. Those unable to will apply for the available scholarships, providing incontrovertible evidence of their inability to afford the fees. Scholarships can include the much-debated allowances, commensurate with cost of living, for the students who demonstrate the need. But everyone else will be admitted on the full knowledge and expectation that they will bear the cost. Currently, the practice is to admit only those for whom the government has reserved a scholarship, many of whom are capable of paying the full fees.

The third thing will be the provision of loans, which will allow those in between to also pursue their education. But a crucial part of getting the loan system right will be loan repayment by alumni. It remains a mystery why we as a nation have failed to put in place a loan system that would have by now helped our universities expand and admit many more students than is the case now (as I argue in an earlier article, loans must be approached with great care. In the US, where student loans are widely available, they have become a burden on graduates, and threaten the country's economic stability).

MUST offers us a new opportunity for a fresh start.

Note: This article appeared on the 'My Turn' oped page of The Nation, Friday 21st June, 2013, under the title 'Getting Must Right From the Onset'.

Distinguishing between cultural revival and ethnic chauvinism in Malawian politics

I have lost count of how many times I have heard the term “harmful cultural practices.” One would think that every aspect of what is supposedly Malawian “culture” is harmful, and must be stopped. The problem is not whether some practices are harmful or not, rather it is what constitutes our understanding of what we call “cultural”. A lot of what is called “cultural” in this particular context has nothing to do with culture. It has everything to do with gender-based violence and abuse fomented by economic, political, social and gender dynamics that masquerade as “culture” when they are not.

Notwithstanding the onslaught that is threatening to obliterate everything to do with “culture”, the country has seen an unprecedented proliferation of cultural preservation groups. While some of these groups have organised quietly and with noble goals, others have taken advantage of the political fortunes of their clansmen and women, and sought political mileage out of ethnicity. In critiquing how we define culture, we are not dismissing the existence of genuine culture and institutions that define a society. Rather, we are guarding against the abuses and excesses of the concept of culture and the tendency for political hijacking of government structures.

Performing artist Masankho Banda performing a story at TEDxLilongwe, 25th May 2013 

It is difficult, but extremely important, to distinguish between cultural preservation and ethnic chauvinism. The difficulty becomes more prominent when we factor in the recalcitrance of our political class to observe separation of powers. Whenever you hear the cry “Bomaaaa” it is usually from party diehards who see their ruling political party and the government as one and the same. It is a hangover from the one-party era that we have failed to cure.

Cultural preservation is an important part of national development, and it must be supported by government infrastructure through constitutional provisions and educational programmes. Separated from political party machinations, government support for cultural preservation provides a level playing field for all ethnicities. We are coming from a history of ethnic chauvinism in which some ethnicities were privileged over others. That set the tempo for how successive governments and their ruling parties have treated the issue of ethnic nationalism.

The reasons why Malawian ethnic groups are clamouring to be recognised may sound counter-tuitive, at first glance. We are yet to deal with the legacy of colonialism which entrenched in us an inferiority complex about our culture, our identity, and our very being. Religions that were imported into the country succeeded on the back of the success of that campaign to inferiorise our very core identity. We have never recovered from that spiritual vanquishing.

It is this recognition that ought to guide the government’s role in restoring cultural pride. If colonialism defeated us on the basis of our identity, any rebirth we wish to initiate will have to be based on reclaiming our worth as human beings. This will be very hard, particularly for those of us convinced that nothing in our existential identity is worth salvaging.

We pay a heavy price for the inferiority complex imposed on us. Our political class has abandoned all sense of agency in taking control of our destiny. We see all social problems as beyond our capacity to deal with them. We scorn and abandon everything that reminds us of our ancient past, which we have been schooled had nothing to do with greatness. Even the efforts we are making at cultural revival are merely cosmetic. What they are achieving to revive are the outward manifestations of culture, in the form of dances, rituals and regalia. These do have their place in cultural preservation, but they do not form the complete cultural agenda.

For this cultural revival to be meaningful, we need to deepen our understanding of the bigger purposes of why we exist as a people. We need to go beyond the outward appearance of culture and identify beliefs and attitudes that affirm our existence and develop our sense of community. This calls for a critical examination of the structures we have inherited for governance and development. We have inherited systems that privilege very few people while marginalising the majority of Malawians. The development agenda in our country is in the hands of only those who can understand the English language, yet the majority of Malawians do not use that language.

This is why even after nearly five decades of independence, the majority of Malawians have not been afforded the opportunity of a meaningful education. A meaningful education does not confer upon one knowledge for the sake of knowledge only. Education entails a deeper understanding of one’s purpose for existing and for belonging in a community. Our guiding purpose ought to be making Malawi a better place than we found it, starting in our homes and in our community. An education that alienates people from their community and their culture is not only retrogressive, it is outright dangerous.

But cultural preservation does not mean holding on to beliefs and practices that have clearly proved to be harmful to individuals and to societies. Cultural development entails a critical outlook, learning about other societies and adopting new ideas.  But this learning has to be on our terms, rather than on the terms of those we would like to learn from. This is where the government’s role in cultural development lies. We must never allow individuals to distort the essence of cultural revival by hijacking government structures for political ends. That will be our undoing.

Note: This article appeared in the Sunday Times Oped debate on 16th June, 2013, under the title Government has a role in cultural revival

Solving the study leave conondrum for Malawian teachers

The decision by the Ministry of Education to stop granting study leave to teachers in the middle of the school year, to avoid disrupting teaching and learning, reminds me of what happened when I got my posting fresh from teachers’ college. That was back in 1993. I had graduated as a primary school teacher from Lilongwe Teachers College, in September of that year. This was after a four-year teacher training programme known then as Malawi Special Teacher Education Programme (MASTEP), a fore-runner to the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) model now in place.

In December 1993 I was posted to a school in a remote part of Dedza district, on the western border close to Mozambique. To get there, I took an early morning bus from Dedza Boma, and dropped off after about two hours. As instructed, I walked to a nearby school and asked the headteacher for directions to the school I had been posted to, which I had been advised was much further away. As I had been told would happen, this headteacher found a Standard 8 boy and ordered him to escort me. The headteacher then gave me his bicycle. The Standard 8 boy got on the carrier, and we pedalled away.

The boy pointed to some hills in the distance, and said our destination was behind those hills. I despaired, but decided to continue. We pedalled for three hours, and finally reached our destination. The headteacher for this school was away, but I left word that I had been posted there, and would be coming back with my household items when the second term opened at the beginning of 1994.

School children in Dedza

We got back on the bicycle and cycled furiously. The bus that had brought me in the morning would be making its return leg in the afternoon, and I needed to catch it to return to Dedza. Miss that bus and I would have had to wait for the next afternoon when it would be making its next routine return leg. I went back to the DEO and told him I would be seeking a transfer to Zomba. I was burning with a desire for higher education, and it would be easier for me if I taught in Zomba. I was not granted a transfer to Zomba, but as a compromise I asked for Ntcheu. I was posted to Gunde Primary School, somewhere in between Khwisa Rail Station and Balaka Market. It was close to my father's ancestral home, so I accepted the posting.

Thus when I read the article about the end of study leave during the school calendar, in The Nation of Monday 4^th June, I knew what this meant for the thousands of teachers affected. The hunger for higher education amongst Malawians is legendary. We know the numbers of how many Malawians make it to university every year. Less than 3,000, out of over a hundred thousand who sit the MSCE exam every year. Many who don’t make it after Form Four spend the rest of their lives sweating to find an alternate route to a university education.

In June 2011 I met a Standard 4 teacher who was spending his entire salary on fees for his bachelors’ degree programme at a local private university in Lilongwe. He was studying at the Assemblies of God School of Theology. I mentioned this teacher’s plight, Amos Matchakaza on twitter, and Hastings Fukula Nyekanyeka, a friend of mine and former classmate, came to the teacher’s rescue. The teacher finished his degree this year, and is now seeking funding to proceed to a masters’ degree. Two factors enabled this teacher to finish his degree. First, someone stepped in to assist him financially. Second, the university he was going to has an evening and weekend programme.

Amos Matchakaza on his graduation day

That is the solution to the problem the Ministry of Education is facing. Unfortunately there are very few reputable Malawian institutions of higher learning that offer the flexibility for evening and weekend classes. This is a huge, untapped market, particularly in the big cities and towns. Lilongwe, one of the fastest growing cities in the world, is the only capital city I know of that does not have a full-fledged public university. The few private universities that attempt to offer evening and weekend classes are bursting at the seams, unable to cope with the demand.

This country is in great need of more universities that can cater to the unmet demand for higher education amongst teachers and other working professionals. It is a well-established fact that higher education is a necessity for national development. By facilitating the availability of flexible options for higher education, particularly for our teachers, the government and Malawian universities will be solving two of the most protracted problems plaguing education in Malawi today: teacher morale and empowerment. 

University education and the crisis of leadership in Malawi

Upon attaining independence, African countries’ expectations were that universities would be the primary institutions to produce leaders who would propel their countries to prosperity. According to Ghanaian scholar Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, Africans expected their universities to build capacity “to develop and manage their resources, alleviate the poverty of the majority of their people, and close the gap between them and the developed world.” African countries hoped that universities would achieve these goals by providing a “home-grown leadership in areas in need of rapid material and social development.” The way to think of these goals was through what Sawyerr calls a “developmental university”, an institution of higher learning that was expected to contribute to a country’s development.

Five decades since independence, what have African universities contributed to the leadership of their respective countries? In this article, we will turn this question onto the Malawian leadership landscape and assess the extent to which our universities have produced, or failed to, the kind of leadership Malawians have always desired. Regardless of the fact that none of the four presidents Malawi has had thus far has been a product of a Malawian university, graduates from our institutions of higher learning are in various leadership positions in the public and private sectors. We discuss why the universities have fallen short of expectations, and what solutions are being suggested by some of Africa’s most prominent intellectuals.

Part of the Chancellor College campus, University of Malawi

As far as educating a new generation of Africans, Sawyerr argues that African universities have succeeded in fulfilling some of these expectations. He says had it not been for these universities, it is hard to imagine where African countries would have been today. But while African universities have made remarkable contributions to the addressing of African problems, these institutions have also failed their respective countries, particularly in the area of leadership both in the public sector as well as in the private sector. The causes of the failures are to be found in the political economy of dominant global ideology, within the institutions themselves, and in the political leadership of African countries.

Sawyerr has discussed the failures of the African university in the broader context of the global influence exercised by international financial institutions and their neoliberal prescriptions (“Challenges Facing African Universities: Selected Issues”, African Studies Review, Vol 47 No 1, 2004). He singles out the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s, which he calls the “lost decade,” for causing “enormous social costs, including the deindustrialization of national economies and the substantial loss of national control over economic and social policymaking.

Professor Thandika Mkandawire, a world-renowned Malawian development economist, has also written extensively on this very topic. He has argued that the anti-tertiary education policies that the World Bank adopted, and has since disavowed, robbed African countries of opportunities to educate a professional class of technocrats. The structural problems African economies experience today have their origins in that era of missed opportunities.  

The death of 'Intellectualism' in African universities

In a 2003 lecture given at the University of Nairobi, Professor Ali Mazrui decried the death of “intellectualism” in the African university. He argued that for a university to help develop its society, first the society has to help develop the university. He identified three crucial relationships that mediated the role of the university and its dealings with the wider world: political distance from the state, cultural closeness to the society, and intellectual links to wider scholarly and scientific values. He argued that it was possible for a university to be funded by the state and still maintain its political distance, as is the case in North America, Europe and elsewhere. He cited the example of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki whom he said had surrendered his chancellorship of six public universities.

Mazrui said African universities were “colonial in origin and disproportionately European in traditions,” adding “African universities are the major instruments and vehicles of cultural westernization on the continent.” This was where the African university faced its most formidable challenge in its attempt to be of relevance to its society (“Towards Re-africanizing African Universities: Who Killed Intellectualism in the Post Colonial Era?” Lecture given at the University of Nairobi, published in Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol 2 No 3&4, 2003).

In a more recent lecture, which we discussed at length in The Lamp (September-October 2011), Ugandan intellectual Professor Mahmood Mamdani echoed Mazrui’s characterization of the African university. Mamdani said the Western university system on which African universities modeled themselves was out of touch with African problems. He said the African university did not prepare students for the conditions in which they would work, conditions they would be expected to have a good grasp of if they were to make meaningful contributions to development (“The importance of research in a university”, Pambazuka News, Issue 526, 21^st April, 2011).

Academics versus politicians

But an important factor in the failures of the African university has been the relationship between African academics and African political leadership. In Malawi, the relationship between the University of Malawi (until recently the only university in the country) and Malawi’s political leadership has always been a testy one. Although the establishment of a national university was one of his major dreams upon the attainment of independence, founding president Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda detested a university that exercised intellectual autonomy. In his 2003 book Rethinking Africa’s Globalization: Volume 1: The Intellectual Challenges, Malawian intellectual and economic historian Professor Paul Tiyambe Zeleza has described the brand of African leaders in the mould of Kamuzu Banda as having been “suspicious and dismissive of academics.”

One tragic consequence of this relationship was, argues Zeleza, the reduction of scholarly work to “sycophancy.” Academics competed amongst themselves to outdo each other in singing praises of the political leadership and concocting subversive plots to bring each other down. One Malawian academic who bore the brunt of this brand of politics of destruction was Dr. Jack Mapanje, a leading poet and then chair of the English Department in the 1980s. Mapanje has described, in his 2011 memoir And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night, the circumstances that led to his betrayal by his superiors at Chancellor College and his detention without trial for three and a half years.

Zeleza points out that the authoritarianism of the state meant that universities were also ran in authoritarian ways. The state appointed senior university administrators who appointed heads of units, who made recommendations for promotions based not on merit but on levels of sycophancy. But Zeleza apportions part of the blame for this state of affairs on the African universities themselves. He writes: “Besotted by opportunism, careerism, parochialism, factionalism, and ideological intolerance, intellectuals have often weakened their collective defense against state assaults.” In the case of Malawi, “intellectuals not only conceded political space to the state, but sometimes assisted in authenticating its authoritarianism.”

The authoritarianism also meant that institutional decisions were top-down rather than democratic, which marred communication, and strained relations between lecturers and university administration. It is in this context that African universities strayed from their missions, and became part of the larger problems that impeded national development. Writes Zeleza: “buildings decayed, libraries and laboratory facilities deteriorated, and the culture of learning and knowledge production degenerated.” This is the history that informed the academic freedom struggle Chancellor College lecturers fought in 2011, and continue to in their rejection of the proposed University of Malawi Act 2012.

In a personal anecdote that illustrates the extent of intellectual degeneration in Malawi, Zeleza writes about visiting Chancellor College in 1996 and discovering that the university bookstore had been closed, and the building was being converted into offices. Close to two decades later, the University of Malawi continues to operate without university bookshops in its constituent colleges. The implication of this situation is a pernicious type of intellectual deprivation that leads to students who graduate from university without adequate preparation for the roles society has carved out for them. Zeleza points out that failure to address problems of intellectual quality in African universities is tantamount to condemning “African students to intellectual backwardness and dependency, both of which constitute a monumental crime against Africa’s development and future.”

The Great Hall, Chancellor College

Do universities’ mission statements matter?

Is it still possible for Malawian universities, public and private, to assume their rightful roles in fulfilling societal expectations and providing for the country a cadre of graduates who can contribute to national development in a more meaningful way? A cursory glance at the mission statements of six public and private Malawian universities reveals a common concern with providing a high quality education that meets the needs of the country.

Malawi’s universities want to “advance knowledge, promote wisdom and understanding and provide services by engaging in teaching and research and by facilitating the dissemination, promotion, and preservation of learning responsive to the needs of Malawi and the world” (University of Malawi). They desire to meet the “technological, social and economic needs of individuals and communities in Malawi,” (Mzuzu University), and to train professionals who manage the country’s agriculture and natural resources (Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources).

They want to “contribute to the integral development of the nation” (Catholic University of Malawi), and to equip graduates “with knowledge, skills and competencies that are necessary for service to God and mankind” (Malawi Adventist University). They aspire to “educate and inspire students to become principled leaders who will transform society for the glory of God” (University of Livingstonia), and to train “competent scholars with relevant skills such as problem solving, decision making, research and analytical skills to contribute towards the improvement of social economic development of the country and beyond” (Exploits University).

Blantyre International University talks of providing “high quality university education for this century,” while Skyway University aims “to provide quality services in a professional and nationally-conscious manner, with integrity within a conducive learning environment.”

Cultivating new leaders

It is one thing for universities to have elaborate visions and impressive mission statements, and another for them to live up to those lofty ambitions. In a paper titled “Learning and Leadership: Exploring the linkages between higher education and developmental leadership,” Laura Brannelly, Laura Lewis and Susy Ndaruhutse of the Developmental Leadership Program (2011) argue that universities cannot adequately prepare leaders if they do not espouse the core principles of leadership in their mission statements, their curricular content and their classroom practices. 

The three authors point out that there is a “symbiotic relationship between higher education and developmental leadership,” and higher education institutions need to be clear about how their aims and objectives can promote good leadership amongst their graduates. Developing the next generation of leaders, argue Branney, Lewis and Ndaruhutse, starts with the types of skills and competencies universities teach and embrace. Teaching methods must demonstrate transformational qualities rather than perpetuate mechanical, top-down transfer of knowledge.

Teachers need to be mentors and role models to their students. Institutions of higher learning themselves need to embrace and practice governance and management models that they teach, as these are the competencies graduates will need to demonstrate as they take up leadership roles. This point was also made by Zeleza who observed that authoritarianism in the state reflected authoritarianism in the university.

Students need to be involved in the institution’s decision making process, habits of practice that good leaders follow. A lot of the vandalism and violence that have come to characterize Malawian secondary schools and universities in recent years stem from a lack of meaningful and democratic involvement of students in decision making.

Passengers no longer

As Malawians debate the legacy left by the pioneering leaders, it will be instructive to keep in mind the plethora of causes that have led to the leadership crisis in the country. Some of these go back to the structures bequeathed to us by colonial history, while some have arisen from the global economic and political structures. The solutions, as suggested by all the scholars discussed in this article, lie in rethinking the governance structure of our universities, the curricula taught in these universities, and the pedagogical methods used.

Mazrui calls for a more Africa-centered curriculum with African languages given a prominent role. He points to the need to recognize African models of knowledge that have the same rigour and depth, outside Western models of science. Sawyerr emphasizes the “primary, irreducible responsibility of the state” in funding and maintaining high standards in the higher education system. Mamdani wants the next generation of African intellectuals to be trained in Africa so as to prepare them for African realities, while Zeleza looks to the “africanization” of global scholarship, and the “globalization” of African scholarship.

Writes Zeleza: “As intellectuals, we must articulate clear agendas for African societies and people, especially as the continent encounters new processes of globalization. These agendas must be rooted in the unfinished tasks of progressive African nationalism—development, democratization, and self-determination . . . Without strong, well-funded universities and research programs, we will continue being passengers.”

Note: This article first appeared in the March-April 2013 issue of The Lamp magazine.

Why Malawi Must Consider Offering Free Secondary Education

Remarks made recently by 2014 presidential aspirant Hon. Atupele Muluzi on the United Democratic Front’s plans to explore the possibility of providing free secondary school education when elected stirred a hornet’s nest. The remarks were reported in The Daily Times of Wednesday 6^th March. 

Whether one is supportive of the idea or opposed to it, this is a debate whose time has come. There are substantive propositions being made on either side of the issue. I will address the merits of both sides, and conclude by pointing out why the country needs to stop being shackled by mistakes of the past and think about long term plans for how to grow Malawi’s human capital.

Why no

There are very good reasons why Malawi cannot, at this juncture, afford free secondary school education. Foremost on the list is the free primary education experience. We know what that did to the quality of education in Malawi. Nobody knows when or whether the country will ever recover from that. It is only those Malawians who cannot do otherwise, albeit being the majority, who send their children to government schools. The rest of us send our children to private schools, whose quality is as varied as the alphabet.

Secondary school girls performing

Then there is the curse of free things. The farm input subsidy programme is a prime example here. Eight years down the road, not only is the country unable to graduate into sustainable food security, the organization of the programme itself keeps becoming more wasteful and less efficient.

Then there are other reasons such as the heavy dependency on donors for the national budget, and the sobering fact that the country simply does not have enough money to afford free secondary school education. We are better off investing in areas of national development that have a better chance of creating more wealth for the country in a shorter period of time. Agriculture and mining would be better investments before secondary school education, or so goes the argument.

Why yes

On the other hand, there are also good reasons why we need to have the discussion on whether we can attempt free secondary school education or not. The mistakes that accompanied free primary education at its onset in 1994 need not enslave us into immobilization and arrested development. Knowing where things went wrong ought to mean knowing how to do things differently next time. 

And while it is indeed true that “free” things encourage laziness, lack of responsibility and lack of imagination, the provision of education is an investment whose rates of return have a direct impact on the economic productivity of individuals as well as of a country as a whole.

A 2009 study by Professor Ephraim Chirwa and Mirriam Matita, both of the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College found that for Malawians, a secondary school education improved one’s earning potential by 15.4 percent, compared to 5.1 percent for primary school education. 

The study, described in a paper titled The Rate of Return on Education in Malawi, found that university education in Malawi improved one’s earning potential by a whopping 66 percent. The importance of this finding is that one’s earning potential translates into a “ripple effect” whose impact extends to the economic potential of the nation as a whole, a point argued by Chirwa and Matita.

There are certain provisions only a government can make for its people. Because some of these are funded through taxes, there is an impression created that these provisions are “free.” The police service is one such provision, as are most hospitals in Malawi. Although everyone agrees that the quality of primary education in government schools is an abomination, it is still a free service, in that sense, to the majority of Malawians who cannot afford private school.

Tertiary education is also free, particularly in government teacher training colleges and nursing schools. Government-sponsored students in Malawi’s public universities are given allowances of K40,000 every month of the academic year, against their contribution of K55,000 for the whole year. This not only makes higher education in Malawi’s public universities free, government-sponsored students are actually paid to go to university. I am yet to hear of any other country in the world where that is the case.

The bigger picture

Meanwhile, the majority of Malawians have never received a secondary school education. In its Malawi Demographic and Health Survey 2010, the National Statistics Office found that only 17 percent of Malawian men aged 18 years and above had completed secondary school. The percentage for women was 11 percent. 

What this means is that more than 70 percent of Malawians aged 18 or older have never completed secondary school. Given the education rates of return from the Chirwa and Matita study, it does not need much explaining to understand some of the underlying reasons why Malawi’s economic productivity is one of the lowest in the world.

There are various reasons why the majority of Malawians are unable to attain a secondary school education. School fees is one of them. In January this year a community day secondary in my home district of Ntcheu was forced to reduce school fees per term from K7,000 to K4,000 because the majority of the students were unable to pay the fees. 

This is reflective of much of the country. At the UN women’s conference in New York last week Malawi’s Minister of Health Hon. Catherine wa Gotani Hara told the BBC that many Malawian teenage girls ended up getting married as a direct result of being unable to pay secondary school fees.

The issue of whether or not Malawi should start considering the feasibility of providing free secondary school education is one of whether or Malawi should consider strengthening its human capital. The reactions to the idea have revealed deeply entrenched cynicism and a disturbing fear of big, bold and progressive ideas.

Writing on the teachers’ forum Bwalo la Aphunzitsi, Malawian education activist Limbani Nsapato expresses the opinion that in the 21st century, a primary school education no longer suffices. He argues that “skills pupils are getting from primary schools are not adequate for them to be creative and think critically as 

21st century citizens in a world of economic crisis and rising unemployment.”

Secoondary school boys

Learning from the FPE fiasco

While paying heed to arguments about how free primary education ruined Malawian education, we need to learn from those mistakes, rather than turning them into an excuse for deciding not to move the country forward. This will entail establishing estimates as to how many more students could potentially enroll in secondary schools, and how many teachers would need to be trained. 

We would need to establish how many schools and classroom blocks, labs, libraries, and hostels we would need to construct. We would also need to calculate how much the education budget would need to increase by, and to determine where the money would come from, among other considerations.

If properly and efficiently done, the benefits of a free secondary school education for the majority of Malawians could potentially transform the country. We do not have to start with a full scale, universal implementation; we can do it in a targeted way. 

There are many who are able to afford the fees. Graduating from secondary schools with the essential skills, these students could bring new ideas and new energies into their communities. This would energise economic activity, and lift up the country's gross domestic productivity.

We would also need to come up with programmes for the many youths who are beyond secondary school age, but do not have any secondary school education. The existing Complementary Basic Education programmes need to be expanded beyond the 9-14 years age cohort to include young adults who are in their twenties and thirties. These need to be offered a complementary or alternative secondary school education, heavy on practical, technical and vocational skills.

As pointed out by Roy Hauya also on Bwalo la Aphunzitsi, one significant consequence of this expansion would be new pressure on our higher education system, already failing to cope with current demand. Chirwa and Matita have pointed out that one failure of the FPE reform was the neglect of the secondary school and university system, which were never expanded to accommodate the new numbers. Repeating this oversight would be a gross mistake. It would be better not to even make the attempt.

Disregarding the role education can play in Malawi’s march toward prosperity is the worst mistake the country can ever make. Limbani Nsapato pointed this out when he remarked, as soon as it was released, that the much-touted Economic Recovery Plan never mentions education as a priority. 

It took the visit of the strategy firm Boston Global Consulting to point out at a Sanjika workshop that education, in all its levels, needed to be at the centre of the whole economic recovery effort. There is no way the economy can grow when more than 70 percent of Malawians are deprived of the relevant skills and knowledge.

Wealth is never stagnant. It grows exponentially in response to the ingenuity and creativity of the people. It is this idea that must guide us as we debate how to deal with Malawi’s intractable problems of poverty and inequality.

This article first appeared in The Malawi News of Saturday 16th March, 2013, under a different title.

Who let the kids out?

Did the primary school children who took to the streets of Blantyre and Lilongwe during the civil servants strike in February do this on their own? Or did someone organize them? Are Malawian school children capable or organizing themselves in this manner?

When I first learned of the development, my initial reaction was that the children had become concerned with the lack of progress in the salary negotiations, and how this was affecting their education. On social media, the news was received with both admiration and alarm. Some exclaimed that this was the first time ever in Malawi’s history that very young school children were expressing their right to free speech, and showing grown-ups that they took their schooling very seriously. Some saw rare heroism from the country’s youngest citizens, suggesting that these school children were “re-defining active citizenship,” in the words of Kondwani Farai Chikadza in a Facebook status update.

School children pose and make the ubiquitious peace sign

But others were very alarmed. They worried that something tragic could easily happen to the children, and there would be no one to be held accountable. Active facebooker Peter Kalua wrote: “Who is guiding these kids? What if they get run over, what if some of them go missing? If there is someone behind the protests of these kids, let him think properly. This is child abuse.” He spoke from a parent’s perspective and added, “I would not want to see my kid in this chaos.”

The children’s action raised several questions. How could they have left school by themselves without adult supervision? How could children from several schools have organised themselves in such an orderly way, knowing where to converge and where to head towards? But there were many others who could simply not buy the idea that Malawian primary school children could do this. There had to be someone who had organised them, for purely political gains. This was also the stand taken by the few children’s rights NGOs who spoke out on the issue.

One only hopes we will be able to get to the bottom of this and find out the truth. If it turns out that some grown-ups were indeed behind this, then it is extremely unfortunate and reprehensible. It will be frightening to see the extent to which some people can go, putting children in harm’s way just to score political points. It was already disturbing to hear one broadcasting house deliberately misrepresent and politicize the school children’s action as a protest against the teachers’ strike.

Regardless of whether these school children were organised by someone or not, there are lessons to be learned by all of us. The first lesson is that we must put in place measures for dealing with the safety and security of school children’s during strikes. Many school children understood why their teachers joined the strike, and stood with them in solidarity. But many schools left the children on their own, communicating nothing about the strike, and putting no measures in place for the children’s safety. This was a clear case of poor leadership at the school level and the strike’s organizing structures. A teachable moment was lost here.

The second lesson is that we need to become aware of the changing definitions of active citizenship and our understanding of childhood. A lot of Malawians point to the passivity and docility of us as citizens as the root causes of the socio-economic and political problems the country is facing. We have a history of expecting someone up there, be it “government” or even “God”, to solve our problems. But times have changed.

This ties into the third lesson. We need to view the discourse on leadership in our country in terms of what Malawi might look like when our school children become more actively engaged in social and political matters. Whether we like it or not, that day is fast approaching. The school curriculum teaches about civic engagement, although most schools handle this more as theory than practice. The best educational systems in the world involve school children in civic engagement and provide a safe environment for them to do so.

We cannot talk of active citizenship in the school curriculum while expecting that our children will remain aloof from and uninterested in the ills that afflict Malawian society. Children learn more than what the curriculum teaches. They learn by observing the grown-ups who surround them. We must always remember that the children are watching us, and are making their own judgments about how leaders lead. Knowing this should make us conscious about what we would like our children to learn, and what kind of Malawi we would like to bequeath to them. 

This article first appeared in the My Turn op-ed column of The Nation newspaper on Wednesday 27th February, 2013.

Joyah's Genius & The Beginnings of a Malawian Film Genre

When your first movie is as phenomenally remarkable as Shemu Joyah’s Seasons of a Life, it becomes inevitable that your next movie will be judged in comparison to the first movie. Which is what is happening with Shemu Joya’s second movie, The Last Fishing Boat. I have met Malawians who swear that Seasons is the best movie they have ever watched, inclusive of everything they have watched from Hollywood, to Bollywood, to Nollywood.

So when I went to the Kamuzu Institute for Sports on 26^th December, 2012, to see The Last Fishing Boat, that question was on my mind: which is the better movie? It was also the first question Joyah was asked by reporters soon after the screening. Joyah’s response was, predictably, that it’s up to Malawian moviegoers to make that judgment.

Joyah talking to reporters after the screening of 'The Last Fishing Boat' at Kamuzu Institute for Sports, 26th Dec 2012

While Seasons was a love story culminating into a deeply Malawian philosophy of what lies at the heart of motherhood, Boat is a love story whose denouement unfolds around the complex vortex of polygamy, serial monogamy, homosexuality and inter-racial love. A British tourist, Richard (played by Irishman Robert Loughlin) in tow with his fiancé, Elena (played by Czech musician Tereza Mirovicova) get caught up in a double love triangle on the shores of Lake Malawi, in the lake tourist district of Malawi.

The plot suggests the tourist wants to buy a bawo board, but as the story unfolds, he wants more. He is infatuated with one of the village women, Abiti Anefa (Flora Suya), whom he first catches a glimpse of as she is bathing in the lake, and he is jogging along the beach. His overtures toward her start with him leaving her money on the beach, and later at a grocery store. She hesitantly accepts the money but then gives it away to children or beggars.

Abiti Anefa is the third wife of Che Yusufu (played by Hope Chisanu; “Abiti” is a salutation in the same manner as “Ms”, while “Che” is a salutation in the same manner as “Mr” in Yao culture), a fisherman who has seen better days on the lake. His father bequeathed to him fifteen boats, but as catches become smaller and smaller, the economic fortunes of the trade also dwindle. His is now down to his last boat. The tourist finds two men playing bawo along the lake, and he asks to be taught how to play it. They make him win the first game, but on subsequent matches he keeps losing. Unable to accept being defeated by a Malawian, he goes after the bawo board, owned by Yusuf. But he wants more than the board.

He takes to stalking Abiti Anefa, until one evening he is found peeping at her house from behind a tree. Che Yusuf finds him, but is unaware of what is going on. He assumes Che Yusuf is coming to buy the bawo board. Che Yusuf invites him in so they can negotiate over the board. There Richard comes face to face with Abiti Anefa. Her husband asks her to brew tea, and also to translate between both of them (Richard doesn’t understand Chichewa; Che Yusuf doesn’t understand English).

Richard stops haggling for the board, and in a daring move, openly declares his love for Abiti Anefa. Abiti orders him to leave, while cleverly mistranslating the dialogue to Che Yusuf so he does not know what is going on. Richard leaves without buying the bawo. When Boat showed at the Kamuzu Institute for Sports in Lilongwe on 26th December 2012, Abiti Anefa’s strategic yet prudent mistranslation between the two languages drew a loud, admiring ovation from the audience.

Meanwhile, Richard’s fiancé, Elena, has discovered what Richard is up to. She gets her vengeance by starting an affair with Yusuf’s son, Mustafa (played by Robert Kalua), a tour guide who is also a male stripper. He tells Elena he is 30 percent gay and 70 percent straight. Elena goes missing for several days, and Richard has no idea where she is. She spends the time with Mustafa, giving the movie it’s most x-rated scene.

But Richard manages to sneak into Abiti Anefa’s house while Yusuf is away. Again he declares his love for her. The scene gives the movie its most philosophical moment. Richard asks Abiti Anefa why she is clinging to a polygamist, as a third wife, upon which Abiti confronts the hypocritical claims made by monogamy. She tells him that as an openly polygamous man, Che Yusuf treats her with respect, unlike Richard who cheapens her by throwing money at her in hopes of luring her. African polygamists follow societal norms when they want another woman, which keep families together. In Western traditions people engage in serial monogamy, divorcing one spouse after another, and tearing families apart. Richard is forced to wonder what feminists in his country would think of this.

As the movie nears the end, Abiti Anefa excuses herself on the pretext of going to see a neighbour. She goes to Richard’s house, where she pleads with him to pay for the board so Che Yusuf can pay a government fishing tax. Meanwhile, the villagers see her, and mobilize themselves, believing that Abiti is secretly seeing Richard. Together with Elena, the villagers, brandishing burning torches, storm the house. Yusuf enters the house, finds both Richard and Abiti, and stabs them.

For a moment it looks as if Abiti has died from the stabbing. Grief and remorse grip Che Yusuf, and he takes his own life. Meanwhile, Abiti recovers and the movie continues having given the audience the impression that it had come to an end. This gives the movie its major weakness. Richard, in an arm sling, and Elena are seen leaving for the airport, not on talking terms. The end comes when Elena stops the car by the roadside, and goes out to meet with Mustafa who is in another car coming from the opposite direction. There she declares her love for him, and tells him she wants to stay. Next thing the audience sees is Elena’s suitcase being hurled out of the car, and the car speeding off.

Other reviewers have suggested that the inclusion of homosexuality in Boat carries a message about cultural degeneration. This is not borne out by the perspective presented by Mustafa. He wonders how come homosexuality is punishable by law, yet adultery, also considered a social taboo, is not. He wonders why some people “get angry on behalf of God.” Responding to a question from a journalist at the end of the showing, Joyah said although the issue of sexual minorities was being championed by the donor community, homosexuality was a Malawian issue, both historically and traditionally.

The question as to whether Seasons is a better movie than Boat is probably inevitable, but is it really necessary? Although coming from the same director, these are two different movies, with two different philosophies. Whether in Seasons or Boat, the genius of Shemu Joyah lies in delving deep into the human psyche to draw out the innermost meanings that define us, both weaknesses and strengths.

In Seasons, it was the metaphysical depth of the meaning of motherhood, while in Boat it is the core of cultural traditions that on the surface may appear meaningless, but whose contradictions serve to give us pause for reflection and re-examination of our beliefs. He may have directed only two movies thus far, but the distinctness of Joyah's approach to film-making suggests the makings of a uniquely Malawian film genre.

Note: A shorter version of this review appeared in The Nation newspaper and on the newspaper's website. 

Why Malawi’s education sector is in a mess Part II

In the first part of this article I argued that the mess in Malawi’s education sector is not occurring in a vacuum; it is a reflection of the state of the country’s governance and political economy. I also suggested that the internal causes of the problems are tied to external causes. In this concluding part I discuss the external causes, focusing on arguments made by a prominent Malawian development economist and an American educational researcher. I end by calling for more investment in the professionalism of Malawi’s teachers, and in addressing the root causes of the anger that has gripped the country’s teaching profession.

Writing on the discussion forum Nyasanet in October 2012, Malawian development economist Thandika Mkandawire, professor and chair of African Studies at the London School of Economics, helped put into perspective some of these causes. Professor Mkandawire listed mistakes that the IMF and World Bank had admitted to making in the decades that developing countries were forced to adopt prescriptions for which there was no guarantee that they would work. In the decades leading from independence of African countries, international financial institutions had what Professor Mkandawire called an “anti-tertiary education stance.” 

This stance led to declines in investments in human capital, whose results are unfolding today. The mistakes these institutions have admitted to have had a “profound impact on African economies,” examples of which include “serious shortages of energy, lack of a skilled labour force, and an absence of long-term financing,” according to Professor Mkandawire. The lack of a skilled labour force and the absence of long-term financing have struck at the very heart of African countries’ governance and social service provision. They have crippled the capacity of countries such as Malawi in not only the education system but right across the entire public sector. 

This Standard 3 class at a school in Lilongwe City meets outside because of classroom space problems 

Steven J. Klees, professor of International and Comparative Education at the University of Maryland in the USA, argues similarly in a September 2012 article, titled “Why Does the World Bank Hate Teachers?” In much of the world, including Malawi, teachers are some of the lowest paid civil servants. Professor Klees traces this phenomenon to World Bank policies that pushed for low salaries for teachers. He also accuses World Bank policies of promoting teachers’ “ignorance,” a result of prescriptions to governments to cut both pre-service and in-service training for teachers, as part of structural adjustment programmes.   

Untrained teachers have become a common full time feature of many educational systems around the world, another mistake Professor Klees attributes to the World Bank. When I started teaching in January 1990, it was after a ten-day crash course that introduced us to the basics of the curriculum and lesson planning, after which we were unleashed onto thousands of unsuspecting learners. In the mid-1990s Malawi hired 20,000 thousand school leavers and left them handling full classes on their own for years. 

Malawi is still years away from achieving the optimal teacher-pupil ratio. Education policy documents prepared by the Ministry of Education indicate a target teacher-pupil ratio of 1:60, considered the ideal. Professor Klees argues that this ratio prescription came out of a flawed World Bank study. Anybody who has taught young children knows how demanding it is to handle just a handful. For the World Bank to have prescribed 60 learners in one classroom just shows how out of touch some policies can be. Professor Klees notes, cynically but poignantly, that this prescription could not have been made for children of World Bank staff. We can add to that list children of Malawian cabinet ministers and high ranking government bureaucrats and other elites. 

What this means is that countries such as Malawi must never accept policy prescriptions without subjecting them to scrutiny and examining them for suitability to our contexts. Currently many donors are prioritizing early grade literacy, in recognition of the pivotal importance that the ability to read holds for the future of a child. But Malawi’s needs are such that little can be achieved in early literacy as long as classes continue being very large and learners continue having no books to read. Government needs to make its priorities clear to donors, and to take an active role in the formulation of donor projects so as to ensure relevance and efficacy. Pilot projects are helpful, but it is pointless to have pilot project after pilot project without applying the lessons nationally.

We cannot afford to revert to training just a few thousand teachers at a time when school enrollments are at an all-time high. Handled well with resources and commitment, the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) model is the most efficient way of training a large number of teachers at once, using new instructional technologies. In other parts of the world, the ODL model is being used to upgrade teachers’ minimum professional qualifications from a certificate to advanced degrees. We need to invest in the professionalism of teachers, providing them with resources so they can form professional associations and acquire advanced qualifications. 

We must address the root causes of the seething anger that has demoralized teachers. We must motivate them with meaningful career prospects. There are some excellent, highly motivated Malawian teachers out there. We must invest in identifying them and supporting their efforts. It is high time we started having teacher professional associations and national teaching awards as is the case elsewhere.  Only when we have understood the broader context of Malawi’s socio-economic problems and its crossover effect in education, and made the necessary investments as described above, can we begin an earnest attempt at getting it right in education.

Click here to read Part I

A shorter version of this article appeared in the 'My Turn' column of The Nation newspaper (Malawi) on Monday 17th December, 2012.