Harvesting What We Plant: Primary School Teachers & the Future of Malawi

This article appeared in the March-April, 2011 issue of The Lamp Magazine: Christians, Politics & Culture. 

Officials in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) have recently been touting the belief that the quality of a country’s educational system cannot be greater than the quality of its teachers. In Malawi, the default teacher education model has been two years of teacher preparation; one year of residential training in a teachers’ training college, followed by a second year of practicals in a primary school. The quality of our educational system is reflected in this model, which has existed for as long as we have been an independent country, notwithstanding slight variations over the decades. How relevant is this model, five decades later?

The unfolding discussion will explore this issue in view of what is obtaining in teacher education within the sub-region and elsewhere in the world. We will also take a closer look at the current strategy for teacher education and development, and how it has responded to a paradigm shift that has changed the concept of education for teachers. Our main interest will be how Malawi can put into action the brilliant plans expressed in the national strategy for teacher education and development.

The Malawian model for training primary school teachers is slightly different from our neighbours in the Southern African region. In some Southern Africa countries teachers are trained for three years, after which they receive a college diploma. But elsewhere in the world, the minimum qualification for a primary school teacher is a bachelors’ degree with another year of teacher certification. Teachers are then given a time period within which they are required to upgrade to a masters’ degree. Teachers who fail to attain a post-graduate qualification within the given period lose their teaching certification. In Finland, considered to have one of the best education systems in the world, the minimum qualification for a primary school teacher is a masters’ degree.[i]

Many teachers in Malawi, and even in the United States, choose teaching because they have been unable to enter other professions considered better paying and more prestigious, such as medicine, law and business. In countries such as Finland and Japan people choose to go into other professions because they have failed to secure a place in a teachers’ college. The academic requirements to become a primary school teacher in these countries are very rigorous, and the programmes are very selective. Such is the prestige of the teaching profession in Finland that only one out of ten applicants to teacher education programmes is accepted.

Here at home the NSTED[ii] has laid out a plan for how the teaching profession, as outlined in the National Education Sector Plan (NESP), should look like between 2008 and 2017. Quite a few of the NSTED’s recommendations are bold and forward-looking. Recognition of how narrow the path to promotion for primary school teachers is has led to recommendations for change. The NSTED recommends a “permanent core programme of accredited (award-bearing) professional development programmes which move from pre-service training through to training for different posts of responsibility in the education service”. For these changes to be effected across the system, the NSTED needs to outline how these opportunities can be afforded not only to teachers but to primary education advisers and teacher educators as well. We can make some bold, long-term plans on what gradual steps to take in order to move towards these goals. New models of open and distance education, combined with access to the Internet, make these goals much more feasible than before.

Malawi has moved with the times in providing structures that would enable advanced professional development for teachers. Teacher Development Centres (TDCs), introduced in the late 1990s have provided structures through which Malawian teachers may acquire ongoing professional development. Many TDCs have been embraced by school communities that have resourced them with electricity, or 12-volt batteries in areas where there is no electricity. Some TDCs have TVs, DVD players, and even computers, in a few of them. The NSTED makes a bold recommendation for all TDCs to be not only electrified, but to be equipped with computers and high speed Internet connections to facilitate continuous development for teachers’ own academic and professional growth.

Aware of many teachers who have sought advanced academic qualifications using their own initiatives, the NSTED recognizes that failure to award promotions to such teachers is often demoralising. The document recommends that teacher training colleges be linked with higher education institutions to enable teachers pursue continuous professional development leading to diplomas and degrees. MoEST has already embarked on a continuous professional development programme for all primary school teachers, but it yet to be seen how the programme will link Malawian universities and teacher training colleges to realise the NSTED recommendation.

On paper, the NSTED’s recommendations have the potential to transform the face of the teaching profession in Malawi. Followed to the letter, Malawian teachers, Primary Education Advisers (PEAs) and teacher educators would possess higher academic qualifications than is the case today. They would have opportunities for further advancement within the primary school system and teacher education programmes. All TDCs would have electricity and high speed Internet. Teachers would find it easy to open email accounts and access the Internet.

Conversations amongst Malawian educationists about the weaknesses of the educational system point to capacity issues in the mother ministry. Letters to newspaper editors and media reports catalogue on a daily basis the ministry’s failure to pay teachers on time, to pay leave grants, and to recognise hard-earned higher qualifications. Questions about the root causes of the seeming dysfunction do not yield easy answers. Acknowledgement is made of the size of the ministry, which some educationists suggest ought to be broken into two or three as is the case in other countries. Given the size of the primary school system, some have suggested that it be made a ministry on its own. Higher education has its own complications that also required the attention of a full minister and a full principal secretary, goes the suggestion.

The quality of education at the primary level affects the quality of secondary school education, which in turn affects quality at the university level, and in the management ecosystem. Teacher education has not been spared either. A 2003 study of primary teacher education in Malawi, by Demis Kunje et al, concluded that teachers’ colleges were “in an advanced state of deterioration” (p. xiv)[iii]. Kunje and company wrote that “ a combination of policy neglect, lack of maintenance, erratic and minimal funding, unstable staffing, and indifferent leadership appear to have resulted in impoverished institutionss with low morale and poor quality learning environment.” If the intervening nine years have seen a reverse of the situation, the current state of teaching and learning in Malawian schools does not reflect significant transformation. A significant problem in this regard is the large numbers of pupils in classrooms, averaging more than 150 learners per teacher in the lower classes.

No solutions can change Malawi’s classrooms overnight, but there are indications that things on the teacher education and developent front might be about to begin taking a turn. At the global level, there has been a paradigm shift from the idea of teacher training to that of teacher education, and some of MoEST’s responses reflect that shift. The old paradigm of teacher training emphasised short training programmes to impart skills, according to teacher education researcher Eleonora Villegas-Reimers.[iv] The new paradigm of teacher education embraces professional development that builds communities of practice with teachers as part of the knowledge making process. Here at home, teachers’ colleges are still being called “teacher training colleges” (TTCs).

Teacher education scholars point out that most teachers teach the way they were taught, and that changing this is a remarkable challenge. In the African context, the problem is made more acute by the dearth of research in teacher education, according to Ghanaian teacher education researcher Kwame Akyeampong[v]. This is no less true in Malawi, where the average educationist, including teachers, teacher educators and even curriculum specialists, do not have easy access to resources to enable them keep up with current research and literature, let alone contributing new knowledge through writing and publishing.

Akyeampong’s observation beckons a need for the kind of paradigm shift described by Eleonora Villegas-Reimers. The establishment of a programme for continuing professional development for teachers in Malawi will need to espouse the new paradigm in its fundamental aspects, adapting it to the needs of Malawi. We will need to start building a culture of research in teacher education, and to create professional communities of learners amongst teachers, teacher educators, primary education advisers and other educationists. Professional associations are a known way of building communities of inquiry in which practitioners group themselves according to subject matter content, share research practices, and participate in knowledge production. Professional associations would also help build a culture of collegial respect amongst educators. There are teacher educators, curriculum specialists, educational managers and supervisors who hold classroom teachers in contempt, who see teachers as beneath them. The paradigm shift we mentioned earlier ought to offer a different model of professional relations amongst colleagues.

None of this happens automatically without teachers taking the initiative and demonstrating leadership. But teachers need to be supported in their efforts to empower themselves, and take ownership of their own professional development. Malawian schools and TDCs need to have copies of relevant policy documents, so teachers and headteachers, supervisors and education managers can read them and know these policies. Schools also need to be supported with structures that should enable them take control of continuous professional development.

Visionary schools should be assisted to find ways and means of establishing libraries, book clubs, study circles, and other professional groupings. Teachers’ colleges need to participate in discussions of big ideas, through speaker and lecture series, conferences, book talks and other forums that enrich the intellect. Stakeholders such as communities, organizations and the private sector can support educational institutions in this endeavour. A programme to create national teaching awards would go a long way towards motivating teachers and other educationists to strive for excellence.

For the Malawian context, our history and our future aspirations compel us to ask ourselves some difficult questions that should be guiding teacher education and curriculum reform. What kinds of Malawians would we like to see our children growing up to become? What have been some of our greatest achievements? What have our greatest weaknesses been? What contributions would we like our country to make to global society? How would we like to handle issues of diversity (social, ethnic, cultural, racial, religious, sexuality, etc) amongst ourselves, and in our interactions on the global stage? What kind of leadership and middle management would we like to cultivate? How can we educate teachers capable of propelling this vision?

These types of questions have a place in our quest to rethink the teaching profession and how we can reshape it to guide a future Malawi. In coming up with responses, we must put the education and professional development of teachers in the forefront, knowing that the quality of our teachers is what determines the quality of our education system in Malawi.

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[i] Samuel E. Abrams (2011) ‘The Children Must Play: What the United States could learn from Finland about education reform’ The New Republic January 28, 2011 Retrieved February 1, 2011

[ii] Malawi MoEST (2008). National Strategy for Teacher Education and Development

(NSTED). Lilongwe: Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

[iii] Kunje D. with Lewin K. M. & Stuart J. S. (2002) ‘Primary Teacher Education in Malawi:

Insights into Practice and Policy’ MUSTER Research Report No 3, Centre for

International Education, University of Sussex.

[iv] Eleonora Villegas-Reimers (2003) Teacher Professional Development: An International Review of the Literature. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001330/133010e.pdf Retrieved February 2, 2011

[v] Albert K. Akyeampong (2002) ‘Reconceptualising Teacher Education in the Sub-saharan African Context’ Journal of International Co-operation in Education, 5 (1). pp. 11-30.

Interview with The Lamp Magazine, Jan-Feb 2011

A version of the following interview appeared in the January-February 2011 issue of The Lamp Magazine. It was conducted by Joseph Kayira. I reproduce here the full, uncut version.

Q: Who is Steve Sharra? 

A: I am a Malawi-optimist and an Afro-optimist. I am a primary school teacher and teacher educator by training, a writer and a peace and social justice scholar-activist by passion, a Pan-Africanist and an advocate of global uMunthu-peace and Gandhian nonviolence by conviction.

Q: Where do you come from? 

A: I was born at Nsipe Hospital in Ntcheu, and lived at Bawi, also in Ntcheu, for the first few months of my life. My parents come from Lilongwe and Chiradzulu, but both their families resettled in Ntcheu in the 50s and 60s. I grew up in Zomba, from when I was one year old, to my late 20s. I think of myself as coming from all these four places.

Q: Where did you go to school? That is for your primary school, secondary and college?

What was your first job? 

I went to Police Primary School in Zomba, and later St Stanislaus Preparatory Seminary, at Thondwe, also in Zomba. I did Forms 1 to 3 at Nankhunda Seminary, and Form 4 at Police Secondary School, both in Zomba. After Form 4 I went to Lilongwe Teachers’ College where I trained as a primary school teacher under the then Malawi Special Teacher Education Programme (MASTEP), between 1990 and 1993.

My first job was as a primary school teacher., and later I worked as an educational editor, at the Malawi Institute of Education. In 1998 I went to the University of Iowa, in the United States of America, where I did a Masters’ degree in English Education. I finished the MA in July 2000, and a month later I moved to Michigan State University, also in the United States, where I started a PhD programme in Teacher Education, focusing on curriculum theory, teaching and educational policy. I finished my PhD in 2007, having researched and written a dissertation on uMunthu philosophy in peace education and in peace studies.

Q: Currently, what do you do for a living? 

I am a teacher training specialist for the USAID-funded Malawi Teacher Professional Development Support (MTPDS) project, a project of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology which aims to set up continuous professional development (CPD) structures for the professional and academic development of all primary school teachers in the country. I must make a disclaimer here. Everything I am saying in this interview is in my personal capacity, and does not represent the views of my employers, of the project I work for.

Education

Q: People complain that education standards have gone down in Malawi. What is the problem and what should be done? 

A: We should treat this question with caution, because having gone to school in the Malawi of the 80s, and having taught in Malawian primary schools in the early 90s, the quality of education even then was not all that comparably different. My opinion is that there have been tremendous social and political changes in Malawian society in the past 18 or years, but unfortunately these changes have not led to corresponding changes in the way we teach teachers. So it is more of a mismatch in perceptions and expectations, rather than a qualitative difference in education standards. Quantitatively, the teacher-pupil ratio in primary schools has exploded, bringing its own set of problems. Problems at the primary school level have predictably created an overflow into the secondary school sector.

There is one solution to the problem of education standards in Malawi. We need the best primary school teachers for Malawian children. The best teachers come from the best students in the secondary schools, and they should be offered the best education we can offer. My mother spent two years training as a primary school teacher in the 70s. This is 2010, and we still teach our primary school teachers for two years only. Two years of teacher education is no longer adequate to handle the education demands of a 21^st century society and a knowledge-based economy.

Q: Do you think teachers are to blame for such low standards? 

A: Teachers are to blame to the extent that they haven’t taken ownership of the profession regarding issues of professionalism. But it is largely an issue of training. As a country we do no insist on highly educated teachers for our primary schools, in the way we do for say medical doctors, lawyers, and secondary school teachers.

Q: Are teachers motivated in Malawi? 

A: Malawian teachers are very demotivated. There is a lot of anger simmering within the 45,000 primary school teacher population in the country. It is a dangerous situation. But everyone is aware of this now, and I think we are beginning to address the root problems.

Q: Do you think the quota system of selecting students to government colleges a fair system? How? 

A: The problem with university education in Malawi is the extremely low percentage of secondary school students who find places in our institutions of higher learning. The secondary school population, according to 2008 figures, is around 233,600. Our public university population is around 8,200, probably increasing to about 10,000 in January 2011. That’s a ratio of about 23 to 1. Every year there are almost 70,000 young Malawians who sit the MSCE (the figures for 2010 were uncharacteristically lower than previous years). Half of them pass, about 35,000, and only 2,500 will find places in the two public universities in January 2011. Obviously, we have a huge problem of access here.

The problem with the quota system is the way in which it was approached, which was interpreted as being targetted at Malawians from the northern region. This made it rather difficult for us to have a meaningful national discussion on two factors. First, the underlying problem of access, and second, the accurate picture, backed by statistical data, of the numbers of students selected into the two public universities, and their regional and district distribution. If the numbers indeed reflect a regional and district imbalance in the selection, then the question becomes what causes such an imbalance. A more plausible explanation for such an imbalance may be factors such as teacher-student ratios, educational resources and infrastructure, parental and community involvement in the education of students, the prevalence of role models, and other motivating and demotivating factors.

Q: What should be done for everyone to get equitable education?

A: A systematic study of the above situation could be a learning opportunity for the rest of the country. Those parts of Malawi that seem to do better educationally have the responsibility to help the other parts improve. Those that don’t do well have the responsibility to learn from those that do well. All of this is dependent on whether indeed a systematic study would reveal regional and district imbalances in the quality of education offered in primary and secondary schools. Unfortunately, the numbers have been kept a secret, fueling speculation about possible political motives. Malawian universities, both public and private, need to take a more active role in supporting curriculum content, professionalism and intellectual development in the primary and secondary schools, but more importantly, in the education of primary and secondary school teachers.

As for the problem of access, I have suggested, elsewhere, elevating teacher training colleges, vocational and technical colleges, health sciences and nursing colleges, and related institutions, to degree-granting institutions. We also need to reconsider if we really need 3-year diploma programmes, which delay academic advancement and waste time and money. Professor Peter Mutharika has suggested community colleges, as is the practice in the United States. I find it a worthwhile suggestion, which could help with the problem of equitable access to higher education.

Economics

Q: Malawi has been rocked with problems of shortage of forex and fuel? What went wrong? Does it mean that we plan poorly? 

A: I am not a trained economist, but with keen observation, there are general trends one notices about the Malawian economy. Poor planning indeed seems to be a big part of the problem. The president has blamed Asian traders for the forex problem. It is difficult to imagine Asian traders expropriating and externalising forex without the complicity of Malawian authorities. Thus in addition to poor planning, we should also ask about the commitment of Malawian authorities to fellow Malawians other than their personal and political benefit.

Q: We have heard that economically Malawi is doing well. Why the shortage of forex in such a situation? 

A: Our overdependency on imports seems to outweigh whatever improvements the economy may ave registered. We import toothpicks and corn flakes! The president may have suggested a refocusing of priorities to turn Malawi into a manufacturing nation, but six years down the road, very little has happened to turn the rhetoric into reality. The forex problem will not relent for as long as we continue to import even simple things as toothpicks and cornflakes. As the economy grows, so does the appetite for luxuries, which we unfortunately have to import. 

Q: There was talk of constructing a pipeline from Nacala and Beira to Malawi to ease the problem of fuel shortage. Can that solve our problems? Is this workable or it’s a political gimmick? 

From what I read, the pipeline seemed to be a genuine solution. But it needs to be buttressed with other solutions to the forex problems as well.

Q: The Shire Zambezi Water Way was tipped to boost Malawi’s economy. Should Malawians lose hope now that Mozambicans appear not to support the venture? 

The reason the Mozambicans appear not to support the venture is the manner in which the project was approached. There seems to have been inadequate regional consultations. The regional benefits of the port to parts of Mocambique do not seem to have been properly communicated. If indeed Mocambique stands not to benefit anything from the project, it is difficult to expect them to support the venture. The success of this venture depends on consultations and cooperation at the highest levels of government between Mocambique and Malawi. President Bingu wa Mutharika needs to consider taking a direct, personal approach in meeting and discussing with President Armando Guebuza.

Q: Should we stick to Nacala and Beira for our imports and exports? 

In the intermediate term, yes; but the Shire-Zambezi Water Way should remain a priority in the long term, with consultation at the highest levels.

Democracy and politics

Q: How would you rate Malawi’s democracy at the moment? Are we on track or we are derailing? 

A: Malawi’s democracy is facing some threats at the moment, but we have come a long way from where we once were. We have aspects of our democracy that are on track. I find our civil society quite vibrant. I also find the media to be quite advanced, despite some setbacks. A few aspects are derailing. Intra-party democracy is probably the most disappointing, as is grassroots participation in governance.

Q: Last year Malawians went to the polls only to elect a majority of MPs from the DPP. Is this healthy for democracy? 

A: This seems to have been a mistake, with hindsight. But at the time, without knowledge of how the DPP majority was going to behave, it seemed like a great thing, given the difficulties the strong opposition presented in parliament.

Q: Some concerned citizens say the DPP majority in the National Assembly has seen a number of bills being passed without scrutiny. Should we say the DPP did not need to have a majority in Parliament to tick? 

A: In 2009, just prior to the elections, a DPP majority in parliament seemed like the only solution to logjam the opposition created in parliament. As I said in response to the earlier question, there was no way of knowing how the DPP majority was going to behave in parliament. The problems we are experiencing now derive from intra-party democratic traditions, which appear very weak.

Q: Intra-party democracy too seems to be compromised. No proper conventions. A lot of in-fighting what should happen? 

A: There has to be a deeper, underlying problem that is rendering intra-party democracy weak. I doubt there’s one Malawian who knows precisely what the problem is. But we can speculate, in an informed way. One explanation could be the conflict that exists between endogenous forms of political leadership, and the forms of political leadership we have adopted by borrowing massively from Europe and America. We have borrowed in a manner that has made it easy to abandon endogenous forms of political leadership. Transplanted onto an African context, the Euro-American models of political leadership we have adopted do not fit perfectly. The problems of intra-party democracy bedevilling Malawian political parties are a manifestation of the consequences of borrowed and transplanted political models.

Now, on their own, borrowing and adopting from foreign models are not problems as such. They become problems when they are done not on the terms of the borrowers, but of the foreign influences. Creativity gets stifled, local ownership lacks, and imaginative thinking becomes harder. That’s what we are seeing with intra-party democracy in Malawi. I can think of three examples to illustrate this point. One, no Malawian party todate has managed to establish a sustainable way of fundraising to enable ordinary, routine party functions. No wonder conventions are very hard and very expensive to convene. The societies we borrowed and adapted these models from don’t have such problems. They originated their own political systems, and they found sustainable ways of fundraising. We copied and pasted, and have no idea how to raise funds for party operations.

The second example to illustrate this problem is the current abuse of traditional leadership. We have failed to blend traditional leadership with the foreign political models we adopted. We have privileged the foreign models over the traditional models, creating stagnation in the traditional models. This is a problem we created; it is not the fault of the traditional leadership model in itself. It is the political elites who are corrupting and busing the traditional leadership model, thereby making it appear moribund, redundant and irrelevant.

The third example is grassroots participation. The foreign political models we have adopted allow only the economic elites to dominate and control the parties. Ordinary, grassroots people and their structures are left out. You cannot expect strong intra-party democracy in a model that privileges elites, and leaves out grassroots participation.

Q: The office of the Vice President since the days of Hon Cassim Chilumpha appears to be in problems. What is wrong? What should be done? Do you see the office of the Vice President necessary? Explain. 

A: Given events surrounding the office of the Vice President in the last 6 years, there is no simple yes or no answer to this question. Whatever one might say might very easily be interpreted from the perspective of which side one is on between Vice President Joyce Manda and the president’s brother, Professor Peter Mutharika. But it should still be possible to answer the question outside the confines of the current scenario. Given the expectations of the framers of our current constitution, the office of the Vice President is necessary. It is the primary actors and personalities involved in the two offices, the presidency and the vice presidency, and their dealings with the media, that are creating the current tensions. So far the whole issue has appeared one-sided and unfair, but I believe that we have an incomplete picture. I believe there’s more here than meets the eye.

Q: What is the future of democracy in Malawi? 

A: Let me answer this as a teacher. The future of democracy in Malawi lies with the young; the future generation. They are the ones who can reshape democracy in Malawi, in Africa and in the rest of the world. For that to happen, the young need the best education society can afford. Teachers need to understand what is at stake. Democracy cannot be divorced from the social institutions that shape a society, its identity and its aspirations. Our definitions of democracy need to be fused with our definitions of uMunthu and what it means to be human being in a community, in today’s world. It is in our schools where this discussion needs to start and be encouraged. We have the capacity to shape the future of democracy in Malawi and beyond. We need to understand that when a society fails to teach its young ones its most important legacy, other forces step in and teach the young ones foreign mentalities that ultimately demean and devalue one’s identity. We have a grave inferiority complex problem, like most societies that were once colonized. Once we realize this, and begin to address it, we will be on our way to reshaping Malawian democracy and society.

Q: With a new law giving power to the Minister of Information to close down newspapers do you see the media operating freely and independently? Explain.

A: I think the Malawian media is beginning to understand that there’s strength in unity and solidarity. A unified media that stands in solidarity with each other nationally and regionally can withstand dictatorial tendencies. Dictatorial tendencies have a habit of eventually backfiring on governments. The Malawi media is mature enough to understand this, and to withstand the kind of pressures being visited upon it at the moment.

A key challenge though is for the print media to find ways of surviving financially independent of government advertizing. One way of doing this is to broaden the appeal of print media so as to go beyond the 15,000 copies each of the two dailies prints Monday to Friday. That base is too small for the media to thrive, financially, and for the nation to achieve social development. With a population of more than 13 million, it is disastrous that the daily printrun for each daily does not exceed 15,000. It will be difficult to establish a meaningful readership base strong enough to wield grassroots power and influence. And it is up to the media themselves to propagate this kind of readership base. The schools are a very good place to start. If young people develop reading habits while they are in primary school, they are more likely to grow up into adults who appreciate the importance of newspapers, and of reading widely.

Press freedom and independence go hand in hand with readership and literacy levels. The more people read, the wider the newspaper readership. The broader the newspaper and magazine readership, the stronger the base for press freedom and financial independence. I believe Malawian newspaper editors and publishers know this.

Q: Your last word.

A: We have Malawians who are innovative, creative and imaginative. They are the ones who make things happen in our country. They are the ones who make it possible for us to wake up each day and go about our daily business. They did not become innovative and imaginative by chance. They were supported by social structures that made it possible for them to develop innovative and imaginative mindsets. We need to propagate such a mindset inorder to address the problems we are encountering today. I view most of our problems in education, the economy, politics, culture, the environment, etc, as emanating from insufficient imaginative and innovative thinking. The few innovators and imaginative thinkers we have today make things happen, yes, but they also face enormous obstacles because a lot of Malawians haven’t paid enough attention to the significance of imaginative thinking.

Each one of us needs to look around our surroundings at home, in our community, in our workplace, in our business environment. We should each ask ourselves: Is this the best we can achieve? Have we expended enough effort to better understand our problems and seek solutions? Have we involved our friends and families, our colleagues, our communities? What role can we each play? What kind of future do we envisage for our children? How can we begin building that future today?

Imagining A New Kind of Malawian Teacher

This article first appeared on the 'My Turn' page of The Nation, on Friday January 28th, 2011

As a country we need to know who great Malawian teachers are, what they do, and what motivates them. We also need to find ways of making their work more visible so as to inspire their fellow teachers, learners, and other Malawians. There are Malawian teachers who have conducted research into the one area that baffles nearly every Malawian educationist: what to do with the problem of large class sizes in the absence of radical recruiting targets. We have teachers who inspire their pupils with primary school research projects on problems in their communities. Several years ago Andrews Nchessie, a teacher at Kasungu Teachers College Demonstration Primary School, led his pupils in conducting research, using oral interviews followed by lab experiments. They found that goat urine, when properly treated, can cure scabies. It was the same Mr Nchessie who invented a flood-detecting device as part of a science experiment. His enthusiasm for science and technology has spread far and wide, locally and internationally. Nchessie’s most recent research has focused on how to handle extraordinarily large classrooms, Malawi’s most difficult educational problem.

There are teachers who have turned their classrooms into resource rooms for their zones, encouraging other teachers in neighbouring schools to visit and learn from them. We have teachers who have taught science in ways that have inspired pupils to go outside the classroom and use their hands to create village-level hydro power stations.

These are teachers who will redefine teaching for the coming decades. They will reshape the idea of a teacher from one who feels paralyzed and helpless in the face of the unfathomable condititions, to one who inspires pupils and communities into finding solutions to problems in their schools and in their communities.

A lot has been said about how science and technology are going to be drivers of a new Malawi and a new Africa. We cannot achieve this new Malawi without providing teachers with the support necessary for them to harness the power of science and technology. You can set yourself a goal of helping teachers in your community open email accounts and use the Internet. Schools would transform their ways of acquiring new knowledge and teaching pupils if each and every Malawian teacher in primary and secondary schools had an email address and access to the Internet. The example set by Airtel Malawi is worth emulating, and would go along way toward making teaching an attractive profession. Airtel Malawi have pledged to adopt three schools and support them by doubling teachers’ salaries and giving the schools an infrastructure and technology makeover.

According to Limbani Nsapato, Policy and Advocacy Manager at the Lusaka-based African Network Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA), the World Bank is initiating a paradigm shift in the global stategy for education. From Education For All (EFA), which has been the guiding philosophy for the past few decades, the new paradigm will now be Learning for All (LFA). Nsapato explains the premise behind this strategy, saying “competencies and skills that make people live happier or more satisfactory [lives] are broader than just reading and writing.” The focus will therefore be on continuous learning for everyone as a lifelong process.

As serendipity would have it, Malawi is also moving in this direction with special regard to teachers’ professional development. The National Strategy for Teacher Education and Development (NSTED) provides for continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers. There are Malawian teachers who already espouse a life-long learning personal philosophy. They will be crucial in inspiring fellow teachers, and more importantly, pupils, to adopt a philosophy of continuous, lifelong learning both in and outside the classroom. Currently many Malawians think of learning as dealing with academic advancement only. But learning ought to be seen in a wider frame than just classroom knowledge, as Nsapato has explained.

Teachers who think in an imaginative, creative way will jump on the new paradigm and initiate local projects to promote life-long learning. In addition to searching for ways to make the Internet accessible to more teachers, the development of a reading culture amongst teachers will also be crucial. Innovative teachers will collaborate with their communities to find ways of bringing books, newspapers and magazines into their schools and communities. In other countries teachers have found book clubs, and month-long summer institutes when school is on break, to be excellent means of continuous learning both in and outside the classroom.

As I have suggested elsewhere before, Malawi needs to rethink the academic qualifications expected of primary school teachers. In the 21^st century, in which knowledge has become advanced and a global outlook indispensable, does a two-year teacher induction programme, terminating at a certificate level, still make sense? Isn’t it time we became more ambitious in our expectations for teachers’ qualifications, affording them the best educational opportunities for the best foundation of Malawi’s future? 

Awarding Outstanding Malawians: Teachers

This article first appeared on the 'My Turn' page of The Nation, on Friday, 31st December, 2010

Last night at the New State House the Malawi nation recognized ordinary citizens who have accomplished extraordinary feats of selflessness, making life better for others. These are Malawians who deserve our congratulations, admiration and emulation. They are the ones who make it worthwhile identifying onself as a proud Malawian. As we round up a remarkable 2010, my thoughts are with a group of Malawians that toil away in remote recesses of the nation’s consciousness, with very little recognition and reward. Teachers in our primary and secondary schools. You are familiar with the truism “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” How often do we strive to go beyond the rhetoric and show our gratitude, at a national function, to teachers, in deed and in action?

Two weeks ago I found myself in the company of seven primary school teachers from a very remote part of Nkhata Bay district. They had come to a Teacher Development Centre (TDC) for a training workshop aimed at establishing continuous professional development programmes in their respective schools. I was amazed to hear about how far some of them had walked, on foot, to attend the workshop. One teacher had woken up at 3am, and set out at 4am. He didn’t arrive at the TDC until 9am. This teacher had walked five hours. The workshop ended at 5.30pm, and the teacher was facing another five-hour walk, in the dark, back home. He was going to sleep for less than four hours before he would get up again and walk for another five hours for the second and last day of the workshop. I did not hear any complaint in his tone.

I was interested in learning more about what was going on in their schools, and in their lives. Nkhata Bay district spent much of December developing School Improvement Plans (SIPs). What were these schools looking to improve as articulated in their SIPs? New classroom blocks, a borehole, roofing material for an existing block, headteacher’s office, a staffroom. They all sounded infrastructural. Were there other projects besides infrastructure? Textbooks and notebooks. One school didn’t have enough of these.

“How about library books? How many of you have libraries in your schools?” There were about 4 schools represented in the group. Only one had a library. I asked whether libraries and library books had been included in SIPs. One teacher responded and said supplementary books were not important. Pupils did not learn much from novels and trade books. They needed textbooks, not novels. I was taken aback. Did I just hear a teacher say books were not important? Was there something in that statement that I did not understand?

The issue of Malawi’s reading culture has attracted a noticeable amount of interest lately, with several commentaries and news articles describing what is being done to encourage reading habits amongst Malawians. My hope has been that primary and secondary school teachers would not only tune in to the discussion, but also actively participate. The school zone I am discussing in this article is very remote, an hour’s drive from the nearest tarmac road into the Kaning’ina Hills.

I learned that there was a Malawian who now lived and worked in Britain, who did his primary school education at this school. Some years ago this Malawian collected library books from where he lives and works in Britain, and shipped them to his former primary school in Nkhata Bay. He also sent money for the building of a library at the school. More recently, some three years ago, he sent another load of books, but the school was unable to raise the money needed to clear the consignment in custom fees. They have no idea what happened to the books; they were either returned to sender, or simply confiscated.

Although the teachers’ sounded as if they were saying books were not important in the lives of their pupils, the situation is more nuanced than this. If Malawian schools are struggling to provide required textbooks to their pupils, supplementary reading material such as novels and trade books are going to be considered a luxury. This is an unfortunate situation that the current debate on Malawi’s reading culture has failed to address.

We are deluding ourselves if we believe we can foster a reading culture without discussing the underlying problems in our schools, and the hardships our teachers face. We are beguiling ourselves as a nation if we believe Malawi can develop without seriously worrying about the conditions in which teachers live and work. Recent legislative efforts have remarkably kickstarted the conversation, but much more needs to be done, by the wider Malawian population. Each one of has a role to play in helping improve the conditions and lives of teachers, the very foundation of our development efforts. If you can read this, thank a teacher yes, but don’t stop there. You can join us, in 2011, in a discussion on how Malawi can establish an annual programme to award outstanding teachers.

Youth, Leadership and Nonviolence: A Global Education Imperative

This article first appeared in The Nation on Wednesday, December 1st, 2010, and also in Pambazuka News.

In the early hours of Tuesday November 30^th a group of students at Viphya Private Secondary School in the city of Mzuzu in northern Malawi fought one another, and destroyed school property worth millions of kwacha. Police came to the scene just before dawn and arrested 54 students, 17 of them girls, according to Zodiak Broadcasting Station. It is not clear what caused the violence, but school authorities have dismissed suggestions that it stemmed from frustrations to do with poor sanitation, lack of entertainment, and poor diet, according to The Nation newspaper (December 1, 2010). The violence that erupted at Viphya Private Secondary school on this night raises questions of the type of education offered to young people in Malawi, Africa and around the world. Of pertinence here is the concept of global education, celebrated around the world the week of Monday November 15^th ending Friday November 19^th. The theme for this year was “Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World.”

I spent one afternoon that week with students of Maghemo Secondary School, in the northern district of Karonga, near the Malawi-Tanzania border. Our discussion was guided by the question of what the term “Global Education” meant, and why the theme, “Peace and Nonviolence,” was relevant to Malawi and to the world.

This was the first time I was interacting with Malawian secondary school students in a discussion setting probably since I left secondary school back in 1989. I had no idea what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. The students were in the mood for more questions and discussion, I had to be pried away from the classroom so as to go and attend to other duties that had brought me to the lakeshore district of Karonga in the first place.

What did these students understand by the term “Global Education?” I asked. “An education about the entire world,” they answered. How about “Peace and Nonviolence”?  “Settling issues without resorting to violence,” came the answer. These are students who are “glocally” conscious. They know about world wars and current wars around the world, and they know about sensitive issues affecting Malawians today. In their questions about peace in Malawi, they wanted to know how the controversy surrounding the quota issue in university selection could be settled using nonviolent methods. Malawi’s president, Professor Bingu wa Mutharika directed early in 2010 that selection of students into Malawi’s two public universities should be based on a quota for each of the country’s 34 education districts. The directive was seen as controversial, and triggered a massive debate in Malawi. It was welcomed by Malawians who felt that university selection favoured specific districts and disenfranchised others. But it angered Malawians who feared that the quota system would deny high scoring students a place in the university in favour of students who did not score as highly, but made the quota for their district.

Equally troubling to the students who came to the meeting at Maghemo was the manner in which the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was using the state broadcaster, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, in unfairly campaigning for the president’s brother, Professor Peter Mutharika, for the 2014 presidential elections. Were there nonviolent methods that could be adopted to address these problems, they wanted to know.

These students were aware of the role of nonviolent action in recent Malawian politics, including the role played by pastoral letters issued by Catholic bishops. On March 8, 1992 Malawi’s Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter addressing political and social problems in Malawi, under the one party government of the Malawi Congress Party and then life president Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda. The letter opened the floodgates of pent up frustrations, which forced out Dr. Banda and his party in the 1994 elections. It was a largely peaceful, nonviolent transition from dictatorship to multiparty democracy.

At least one of the students at Meghemo knew about Mahtma Gandhi, the man whose philosophy of Satyagraha gave the world the concept of nonviolence that guides peaceful mass action in various parts of the world today. They knew about how violence is too often the first rather than the last resort. They listed religious, emotional, political and gender violence, and expressed the conviction that they, as students, had a role to play in teaching nonviolence to their colleagues and to their communities. They promised to start a peace club, whose name would come from the word for ‘peace’ in one of the languages spoken in their area.

If there is one thing that ought to inspire and give hope about the future of Malawi, it should be the sight of young Malawians engaging with the difficult issues of the day. I met these young Malawians barely two days after party youths in the capital city, Lilongwe had threatened violent action against a Malawian journalist who had asked President Bingu wa Mutharika questions they deemed to be ‘tough’ upon his arrival from a state visit to India and the G-20 summit in South Korea. The president arrived at the Kamuzu International Airport on Monday November 15, and held what Sunday Times columnist Raphael Tenthani termed a “press rally”, a blend between a press conference and political rally.

The journalist, Mike Chipalasa of Blantyre Newspapers Limited, had asked the president questions about fuel shortages that had gripped the country in the president’s absence, and about a recent pastoral letter issued by the Catholic bishops. The letter was seen by supporters of the ruling party as critical of the government. The party youths had ignored the president’s own encouragement to reporters gathered at the Kamuzu International Airport, to ask any question they wanted. Even as the party youths and dancing women murmured and booed Chipalasa before he finished his questions, the president urged him on, saying, “let him continue.” The party youths descended on Chipalasa after the function and threatened to beat him up. It took the intervention of the police who appeared on the scene and led Chipalasa to safety.

Columnists writing in Malawian newspapers in the wake of the airport incident were unequivocal in expressing their shock and disappointment. For many Malawians the whole episode brought back unsavoury memories of an era gone by when party youths became a law unto themselves in full view of the police and political leaders. There was a time when police officers were harrassed by party zealots, with utter impunity. For a moment, it appeared as if Malawi was on the verge of backtracking to those sad years. Another columnist, Brian Ligomeka, noted that the Malawi Police Service needed to be thanked for stepping up to the fore and asserting their responsibility to protect and restore order. Equally poignant was Tenthani’s question as to why the police arrested no one. Chipalasa himself expressed gratitude for the police action, saying it saved him from an unknown fate.

Contrasting the police action on Monday November 15^th with the impunity of the past, one notices a relative distinction in the way the Malawi Police Service view their role in a supposedly “democratic” dispensation. Relative because one would have expected the police to not only prevent an act of violence, but to also apprehend whoever was threatening the violence, as Tenthani argued. But it’s a distinction nevertheless, in that this time around the police seemed to have had the sense and professional judgment to be proactive and prevent violence.

Malawians have been waiting for statements at party and government levels setting the record straight as to whether or not the kind of conduct displayed by the youths in full view of their leadership will be tolerated. Failure to set the record straight here would be interpreted by some as condoning political violence. Columnist Levi Kabwato mused in his Sunday Times column of November 21^st that “the DPP is essentially the UDF (United Democratic Front), at least they share the same DNA.” It is up to the respective parties to respond and correct that perception, or keep quiet and leave no one in doubt. The advice from Tenthani, in his “Muckraking “ column tellingly titled “Tame the rascals”, was timely: “if left untamed party youths can mar a leader’s otherwise clean legacy.”  

Will it be enough to tame the youths and redirect them toward peaceful, nonviolent expressions of their views and beliefs? Or is there more that needs to be done before things revert to the dreaded past? What obtained during the era of UDF’s rule, when party youths went wild beating up opposition politicians with impunity, was not new. It was merely a perpetuation of what had obtained during the one-party regime. Youths were given the role of unthinking demagogues who guarded the ill reputation of their erstwhile masters and mistresses with reckless abandon. The airport “press rally” incident tells us there is no guarantee that those days are irretrievably gone. They could come back.

One thing we might want to do as a nation to effectively curb this tendency is to go beyond proselytising about peace and nonviolence. We seem to know little, as a nation, about the psyche that makes this kind of conduct possible. It is imperative to analyse this phenomenon by studying it, and the perpetrators too, carefully. Rather than further demonise youths who seem not to know the difference between psychophancy and critical thinking, we need to engage them in a discussion on what it means to have a free press, and to advocate freedom of expression. These are lessons that seem to have fallen by the wayside since 1992 when the bishops opened our eyes.

This ought to be a broader, national discussion on what kind of leadership we envisage for Malawi’s future, as University of Malawi political scientist Dr. Blessings Chinsinga suggested in his Sunday Times column of November 14, one day before the airport incident. Dr. Chinsinga’s call is worth repeating: “. . . there is an urgent need for a leadership revolution in all spheres of life. We need new leadership that is motivated by an ethos of trust, honour, integrity and service.” Dr. Chinsinga believes that this kind of leadership does not happen on its own accord; it needs to be propagated through proper training. He wrote that our university campuses were devoid of a “culture of critical engagement”, reduced to “welfarism”.  The effect of this was being seen in youth wings of political parties, which Dr. Chinsinga said “require an urgent reorientation of their role in politics.” He went on to call upon youth wings to exercise autonomy so as to develop their leadership potential to the highest levels of their parties’ political structures.

What I saw at Maghemo Secondary School on November 17^th gave me hope that whereas “critical engagement” might indeed be dead on university campuses in Malawi, there are Malawian secondary school students ready and eager to seize the opportunity and claim their rightful place. But this will not happen on its own. It will need the support of discerning teachers, parents, the entire educational system, and the wider Malawian community. It will need learning lessons from Malawian, African and world events, with an emphasis on global social justice. The events at Viphya Private Secondary School on the morning of Tuesday November 30^th happened two weeks after the commemoration of Global Education Week with its theme on peace and nonviolence for the young people of the world. Although one small isolated incident, the Viphya school violence might be instructive for schools in Malawi and elsewhere in discussing prospects for peace and nonviolence education..

While visiting India in early November, President Bingu wa Mutharika paid his respects at Mahatma Ghandi’s resting place. He was honoured with a bust of Gandhi, and was given copies of books written by Gandhi. This was a pivotal moment of the state visit, and should have a bearing on how Malawi can promote Gandhi’s ideals of peace and nonviolence. Gandhi’s genius was that nonviolence requires more courage and discipline than violence. Gandhi led a nonviolent revolution that drove the British out of India, and won independence for his country. Peace and nonviolence is also what Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, among others, have preached and practiced. It is what uMunthu teaches. The Chichewa proverb, Nkhondo siimanga mudzi (war does not build a village)—offers a Malawian perspective on nonviolence. Global education is a good starting point for peace and nonviolence for the children of the world.

Involving Universities in Educating Primary School Teachers: The Case of Malawi

This article first appeared in The Nation on Wednesday, October 13, 2010. It also appeared in Pambazuka News, and on the Zeleza Post, with a different title.



With one of the lowest university enrollments in Africa, the debate on who gets access to higher education in Malawi is an incendiary affair. The debate has erupted once again with the announcement of the 2010 intake for the University of Malawi. Largely missing from the debate, however, is any discussion of the role of the university in Malawi’s teacher education system, the foundation for the education apparatus. I wish to argue here that much as we may think of primary school teacher training as outside the Malawian university system, teacher education could potentially offer a way out of the contentious equitable access quagmire. It could also offer another approach toward achieving the ‘technicolour’ dream of the new five universities being planned by the Malawi government, as announced by president Prof. Bingu wa Mutharika in May this year.

5 October is World Teachers’ Day, and its occasion this year provides us an opportunity to discuss issues such as teachers’ welfare, training and professional trajectory. In the following discussion, let us explore the question of the involvement of the Malawian university system in the teaching of primary school teachers. Let us examine some of the consequences that arise out of the absence of Malawian universities in teacher education, and what recommendations a new teacher education and development policy is making to address that problem. We need to put this discussion in both the local and the global context, commenting on the expressed wish by the government of Malawi to construct five new universities, while observing Asian, American and European countries making massive investments into their own higher education systems.

Considering the approaches used by countries whose educational models we follow, it has been somewhat of a curiosity that very few Malawian educators have given thought to linking primary school teacher education to the university system. It is imperative that we think seriously about the role of the university in the training of primary school teachers, argues Bob Moon, professor of education at Britain’s Open University and founding director of the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) programme. Moon points out how African countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan and South Africa have long involved their universities in the training of primary school teachers.

He says the progression of university involvement in the training of primary school teachers has not been easy. The United States didn’t make the transition from independent teacher training to the university system until the 1930s. The British only started in the 1970s, while France did it in the 1990s, as did South Africa. According to Moon, Sudan is currently upgrading the qualifications of 130,000 primary school teachers in the Sudan Open University system.

In many countries, including Malawi, higher qualifications for primary school teachers always mean a ticket out of the classroom into administrative positions or other better paying careers outside the teaching profession. I heard the most poignant metaphor to illustrate the folly of this in a personal communication with a Malawian educationist who has given a lot of thought to these issues. Lexon Ndalama, executive director of the Association of Christian Educators of Malawi (ACHEM), told me in 2004 how illogical it was to use higher educational qualifications to entice teachers out of the classroom. ‘Imagine you have a nursery,’ began Ndalama. ‘Instead of giving the nursery your best resources to give it the best foundation for future growth, you deprive the nursery and instead devote your best resources to your other gardens.’

This is precisely what has been happening in Malawi, as expertly analysed in the National Strategy for Teacher Education and Development (NSTED) document. Completed in 2008, the NSTED document, Malawi’s most up-to-date recommendation for teacher policy, laments how the best teachers are always taken out of the primary school classroom and sent to secondary schools and other administrative positions. Another way of looking at the problem is to think of who we assign to teach in our primary schools, secondary schools and tertiary institutions. We train our primary school teachers for two years only, and in many cases, we let them enter the classroom as a full time teacher only after a very brief orientation. This is how I trained as a teacher in the 1990s, under the Malawi Special Teacher Education Programme (MASTEP). In contrast, we insist on a rigorous university education for our secondary school and tertiary education teachers, whom we expect to make a good job out of the same pupils taught by teachers with a minimal professional qualification. There are several consequences that arise out of our reluctance to afford the best academic and professional training to primary school teachers. Let us examine just a few.

The absence of the university establishment in teacher education means that none of the most experienced researchers and intellectuals of which Malawi boasts make their expertise available to the training of Malawian teachers. As Paul Tiyambe Zeleza observed in his 1997 book, ‘Manufacturing African Studies and Crises’, there is a gap between what African scholars produce, and what African schools teach. In Malawi, as in many African countries, we have no tradition of sustained research in teacher training, teacher competence or best practices. We do not have much research into what contributes to a teacher’s effectiveness and greatness. Our universities are in turn deprived of experience in a crucial area of the development of the nation.

Another consequence is the dumbing down of a profession that is of primary importance. Teachers make up the largest number of civil servants in any ministry, and with the majority of these being primary school teachers, we have a large section of our professionals who are deprived of the benefits of a higher education. When you consider that teachers are supposed to be professionals in the same tradition as medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, economists, and others, it is surprising that we do not think of primary school teachers as deserving of the best education available. Our problem of difficult access to university education is most illustrated in the figures available: with more than 233,500 students in the Malawian secondary school system, our universities have space for a total of 8,000. Only 2,000 students have been offered places as first year students in the 2010 University of Malawi selection announced last week. And this is itself an improvement from previous figures.

The absence of university involvement in the training of teachers also contributes to the problem of access to university education in Malawi. This problem would take on a different shape if our teacher training colleges were to offer four-year university degrees. Not only would we be graduating 2,500 more degree holders every year, in addition to current numbers, the profession itself would also be transformed. The many gifted and brilliant young men and women who have never thought of a teaching career could be attracted to the profession by the allure of the opportunity to obtain a rare university degree.

One of the crucial issues discussed in the NSTED document is low teacher morale, poor motivation, and the low social status of teachers. The type of training and the kind of qualification which trainig produces are two of the factors contributing to the low morale, motivation and social status of Malawian primary school teachers.

We have a few teachers who are undeterred by these factors. They embrace their profession with zeal and passion, and inspire their pupils, against the odds. But they are very few in number. Researchers who study teachers’ classroom performance point out that teacher perseverance in the face of adversity often translates into inspiration for pupils. A recent article in the American magazine, ‘The Atlantic Monthly’, cited research by a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, Angela Lee Duckworth, and her colleagues, on teacher perseverance. Duckworth and her colleagues found that teachers who scored high on perseverance and had a passion for long-term goals were 31 per cent more likely ‘to spur academic growth in their students’.

Even more important as a teacher trait was life satisfaction, Duckworth and her team found. Defined as being content and satisfied with their lives, teachers who scored high on this trait had a 43 per cent success rate in the classroom than peers who reported low life satisfaction. It is confirming to see research results producing these conclusions, but these are matters of intuition to anybody who has been inside a classroom. It is not surprising that the perception of dwindling standards of education in Malawi and elsewhere (including the United States) is accompanied by rising anger and frustration among teachers.

The NSTED document is a bold attempt by the Malawi Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to address these particular problems. The teacher policy recommendations articulated in the document suggest a career path for teachers to receive rewards and promotions through a structure that offers continuous professional development tied to academic credit offered through collaboration between teachers’ colleges and our universities. The document is careful to recommend rewards for higher qualifications inside the education system, just falling short of calling for a university degree for every primary school teacher as a long-term strategy. Such a suggestion never fails to elicit questions about whether the Malawi government’s budget capacity can successfully absorb thousands of primary school teachers with university degrees.

Another unwarranted fear warns about the problems that could potentially be caused by too many university graduates. These are legitimate debates, but they do not warrant enough reason to delay much-needed reform in the teacher education system. The emphasis needs to be on highly qualified teachers, and strengthening our universities to be able to offer that kind of teacher education. In a press release to commemorate World Teachers Day this week, the Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) makes mention of the need to provide teachers with ‘adequate in-service trainings for all teachers so that teachers keep updated on emerging issues.’ The press release calls for opportunities for teachers to upgrade their academic qualifications by taking advantage of the proliferation of accredited universities in Malawi. TUM’s vision for teachers is right on the mark. The Malawi Mininstry of Education, Science and Technology is in fact already rolling out a national teacher professional development programme which will address the issues TUM outlines.

Many countries are already moving to construct as many universities as they can. These countries are convinced that in the 21st century, universities are key in producing the kinds of knowledge needed to transform economies and enhance livelihoods. In an article published in the May/June issue of the American journal, ‘Foreign Affairs’, Richard Levin, president of Yale University, describes efforts in this direction by focusing on the growth of Asia’s universities. Two years ago the Indian government announced a plan to construct a world-class university in each of its 30 states, later amended to 14 universities in states that don’t already have a comprehensive university. China, South Korea, Singapore are all pursuing similar goals, guided by the understanding that ‘greater access to higher education would be a prerequisite to sustained economic growth.’

The Malawi Government’s plans to build five new universities in the next ten years would seem to follow a similar conviction. As Levin argues, ‘In today’s knowledge economy … it is not subject-specific knowledge but the ability to assimilate new information and solve problems that is the most important characteristic of a well-educated person.’ It would be folly to wait until a learner was at the university before teaching these characteristics. In order to inculcate these abilities from a young age, Malawi needs to train primary school teachers to the highest quality feasible. In an unpublished essay, Master Kalulu, a seasoned and distinguished Malawian teacher educator, says teachers now operate in ‘situations that are global and dynamic in nature.’ He calls for a teacher education that enables teachers to ‘perceive education as a process of freeing curiosity, permitting individuals to go charging off in new directions dictated by their interest and unleashing enquiry.’

As we debate how to increase equitable access to higher education for all Malawians, let us also consider the foundational players in the educational system, primary school teachers and the institutions that train them. We should also think of ways to strengthen indigenous knowledge systems whose resilience has come under threat from research approaches that do not understand the role that local knowledge systems play.

Levin writes in the conclusion of his article, ‘Increasing the quality of education around the world translates into better-informed and more productive citizens everywhere.’ We can do no better than start with the teachers whom we entrust with the task of educating our little ones, our future leaders.

Transforming the teaching profession as a national development strategy

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times, 7 October, 2010

The occasion for this year’s World Teachers Day commemoration, October 5^th, has spurred recollections and reminiscences of teachers who have been influential in a number of people’s lives. In a ‘My Point of View’ op-ed column by Limani Nsapato in the Friday October 1^st issue of the Daily Times, he wrote about a Mr. Zuze, his Standard 3 teacher who inspired him to start liking school, and achieve academic success in later life. In the Nation on Sunday of October 3 Akossa Mphepo dedicated her Editor’s Note in the EveryWoman section of the paper to the teachers who have remained memorable for her to this day. She also interviewed Maggie Madimbo, a primary school teacher who went on to amass degrees, and is now studying for a Ph.D. in the United States.

Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I would like to say something about my own teacher training days and how I was inspired by teachers who shaped my passion for reading and writing. In so doing, I would also like to celebrate friends and colleagues with whom I have travelled along this path, some of whom are, unfortunately, departed. I will conclude my thoughts with a discussion on Malawi’s aspirations for its future teaching corps, as outlined in the National Strategy for Teacher Education nd Development (NSTED), developed in 2008. Over and above everything else, I want to suggest that we engage in a constructive national debate on how to transform teachers’ lives and performance in Malawi.

My teacher training started in December 1989 and ended in September 1993. The MASTEP program had been designed as a three-year program, combining a residential model during the school vacations, and a distance-learning model during the school year. In effect, as can be seen from the dates, it lasted four years. I made some very striking friendships within a week of my arrival at the Lilongwe Teachers’ College, towards the end of December 1989. In a matter of days, I had become very good friends with Charles Mnjale Gwazeni, Albert Kalimbakatha, Isdor Kaiya, Limiton Chalera, Ken Kalonde, and a few others. We all had one thing in common. We loved to read and write. Soon we formed what we called the Malawi Special Teacher Education Program (MASTEP) Writers Workshop. During our two-month stays at Lilongwe Teachers College over the next three years, we met almost every afternoon right after lunch. We took turns reading our writing, and critiquing each other. Our writing ranged from poetry to short fiction to feature essays. Gwazeni, Chalera and Kalonde are deceased now, but their literary and teaching spirit lives on in those of us who were touched by their genius.

By the end of the MASTEP program we had put together a literary journal containing works of poetry, fiction, essays and other types of writing. We drew inspiration from some of Malawi’s finest writers. After the initial two-week residential orientation at Lilongwe Teachers’ College, I was posted to Chikande Primary School, in Ntcheu, where I spent the rest of my teacher training. We taught during the school year, and we went into college during the Christmas, Easter and Summer vacations.

Looking back at my time in the MASTEP programme two decades later, I am very happy that I chose teaching as my profession. Well, I didn’t actually choose it over other careers. I was away at my home village in Ntcheu enjoying the summer vacation when my father saw an announcement for the MASTEP programme in the newspaper. He cut it out and mailed it to me, advising me to apply for it. My father, a police officer of many years, believed that I would make a better teacher than a policeman. He thought my mother was an excellent primary school teacher, and I could tell he respected teachers more than he respected any other profession.

Teaching gave me a start in my professional life, and I have grown to see the world from the perspective of a teacher and the role teachers play in building a society. Even as I have developed other professional habits, teaching has always been at the centre, from the knowledge production aspects around a particular practice, to the dissemination and utilisation of that knowledge for broader social purposes.

Over the years I have had many wondeful teachers, at various levels of the educational system. Mrs Kajawo was my first ever teacher in Standard One at Police Primary School, and in Standard Two Mrs Saiwa and Mrs Mwenelupembe were my teachers. These wonderful teachers guided my earlierst attempts at reading, writing and numeracy. In secondary school, two teachers stand out, mostly for their encouragement, through actions mostly, on the importance of reading widely and writing seriously. I started thinking of myself as a writer when I was Form Two at Nankhunda Seminary in Zomba. In Form Three our English teacher was Fr. Lawrence Mlenga, and he easily noticed how I enjoyed writing. I did my Form Four at Police Secondary School in Zomba, and there it was again an English teacher who stood out. Mr Lot Dzonzi, now Commissioner of Police, introduced a Writers’ Board, and encouraged us to write and post our stories there. In addition to being my English teacher, he was also patron of the drama group, and we ended up at number three at the 1989 ATEM national grand finals. Police Secondary School later won the national championship. By then I had finished my Form Four and left.

Mr Dzonzi went beyond the call of duty. He took personal books from his library, which were not even on the exam sylabus, and gave them to his students to read. One such book was Ngugi wa Thiong’os Devil on the Cross, which I read right after I finished Form Four. Another one was Athol Fugard’s published play Sizwe Bansi is Dead. After the MSCE exams, he took me to the homes of Wokomaatani Malunga and Garton Kamchedzera, where he introduced me to these Malawian literary luminaries and encouraged me to follow in their footsteps. It was these steps that later led to my becoming a non-university member of the Chancellor College Writers Workshop, which later led to many other writing ventures, two decades later.

I recently wrote about spending six months in 2004 visiting schools and talking to Malawian teachers about prospects for peace education in Malawi. For me those six months epitomised the coming full circle of teaching, writing and national aspirations. As a classroom teacher, I remember feeling respected by the village community around Chikande in Ntcheu, while learning how unappreciated teachers were by the authorities. My school visits and talks with teachers in 2004 revealed to me new depths in the anger and frustrations many Malawian teachers feel, especially in primary schools. This is no secret to anyone who studies Malawian schools. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has highlighted the problem of teacher morale and frustration in its 2008 National Strategy For Teacher Education and Development (NSTED). The NSTED document has offered practical recommendations for teacher development policy to enhance the lives of teachers and thereby promote teacher performance in Malawian schools.

No clause in the NSTED strategy holds more potential for the revitalization of the Malawian school system than the recommendation to introduce an accreditation programme to offer teachers a path for career advancement through classroom performance. The NSTED proposes that the accreditation programme be tied to collaboration between teacher training colleges and universities, and be supported by equipping Teacher Development Centres with modern technology and Internet connectivity. 

The NSTED is a far-sighted, comprehensive educational policy recommendation that has the potential to transform teacher education and school performance in Malawi. If it can become widely publicised so that every teacher and educator in the country knows what the teacher policy is, Malawi will have embarked on the road to revamping the educational system and to a more meaningful approach that goes beyond Millennium Development Goal Number Two, Universal Primary Education by 2015. As many educators understand, it is one thing to achieve universal primary enrollment, but it is quite another to provide those children a quality, meaningful and relevant education.

As has been observed by Bob Moon, founding director of the Teacher Education in Sub-Sharan Africa (TESSA) programme, the MDGs do not mention teachers, an oversight that can potentially stall progress and development in any country. During the BBC’s MDGs panel discussion in New York last week, President Bingu wa Mutharika told the audience that the MDGs missed the “supply side” of the equation. The MDGs, said Professor Mutharika, said nothing about the teachers that would be needed to train the children being targetted for Universal Primary Enrollment. Bringing teachers into the strategy calls for massive investments into not only teacher recruitment, but also sustained, long-term research into how to train and develop excellent teachers. As of now we do not have that kind of research in Malawi, a consequence of not involving the university establishment in the education of primary school teachers.

For the school experience of children to have relevance beyond universal enrollment, we need to not only address chronic teacher shortages, we also need to realign teacher education with the needs of a 21^st century society. We need to broaden the discussion on how effective it is to offer teachers a two-year education, with none of our universities taking an active, leading role in teacher education and curriculum research. We need to seriously think of how to motivate teachers beyond cash emoluments and higher qualifications.

Several of us have started a discussion on how to develop an annual Teacher of the Year Award, along the lines of the end of year awards organizations such as the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation run. We are having this discussion using online tools that are increasingly becoming more accessible here in Malawi. In the coming years it will be possible for many teachers to access the Internet, as some teachers have already taken the initiative, on their own, to open email accounts.

To create space for discussing teachers’ issues and share information and developments about education in Malawi and beyond, a number of us recently started a google online forum, called Bwalo la Aphunzitsi. It is located at http://groups.google.mw/group/bwalo-la-aphunzitsi. To join, send an email to bwalolaaphunzitsi@gmail.com, and be a part of the important discourse envisioning Malawi’s teaching profession for the 21^st century.