Background
Primary Schooling in Malawi is universal and free. However,
resources are limited. There are not enough teachers and classes
of 100 or more are common. Classrooms often do not have desks and
children sit on the concrete floor. Sometimes there are not even
classrooms and lessons take place in the open with a blackboard
against a tree. There are hardly any books or other resources.
School attendance is low because of the lack of facilities,
distances travelled to get to school and pressure on families to
keep children at home to work in the house and fields. Not all
children enrol for primary school and 20% of those who do drop
out before reaching Standard 5.
Primary education lasts for eight years. It is conducted in
Chichewa, the main local language, and English is taught as a
second language. At the end, pupils sit the Primary School Leaving
Certificate examination. The most successful are selected for the
limited number of secondary school places, for which fees must be
paid. Secondary schooling lasts for 4 years, is taught in English
and has subjects similar to the English GCSE. There is no A-level
stage. Secondary schooling goes up to the equivalent of AS-level
and there are then four years for college or university courses,
which are very limited in number.
Half of the population of Malawi is under 15 years of age, so
there is a very high number of school age children. In Dedza, there
are over 200 primary schools. Government secondary schools can be
Community Day Secondary Schools for local children or boarding
schools that take children from across Malawi.
The Dedza District Development Plan 2007-2010 recognises the
need to increase the amount and quality of primary and secondary
schooling. It includes programmes to
- build more primary and secondary schools and renovate existing ones
- increase the number of primary and secondary school teachers and improve their supervision
- mobilise and train more Parent Teachers Associations
- increase enrolment and reduce the drop-out rate in primary schools
- increase support for pupils with disabilities
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