BackgroundPrimary 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
|
 Dedza, Malawi 
|
