2.1 Introduction: Overview of the Main Characteristics of the Education System

The education structure in Malawi has three tiers. The first tier comprises only the primary school system and it is not linked to pre-school activities. The second tier is the secondary school system comprising a normal school mode and a distance education mode. Tertiary education is the third tier and it comprises the university, technical and vocational education and teacher training. At the end of each the first two cycles candidates sit for national examinations. Transition from one cycle into the next is not automatic. First candidates must pass the national examinations. Candidates are then selected into different institutions depending on the availability of places and the quality of grades obtained in the examinations. For various reasons access into the secondary and tertiary levels is on a competitive basis.

This chapter outlines the characteristics of each of the cycles and highlights the major problems associated with them.

2.2 The Primary School System

The primary school system is an 8 year cycle. The grades are termed standards with standard 8 as the final grade. Std 1 and Std 2 are called the infant classes or the infant section; Std 3 to Std 5 are called the junior classes or the junior section; and Std 6 to Std 8 are called senior classes or the senior sections.

There are basically three types of primary schools in Malawi. These are:-

· government financed and controlled schools
· government aided or assisted schools mainly operated by religious missions and
· unassisted schools operated by private or voluntary agencies.

The government prescribes the curriculum to be followed in the first two types of schools. It also provides the teachers and curriculum materials like textbooks but the proprietors of the government-aided schools decide on the leadership of their schools. Unassisted schools are free to follow any curriculum they may choose. Apart from giving licences to operate on standard premises the government has little control over the nature of schooling that goes on or the characteristics of the teachers in unassisted schools.

The District Education Office (DEO) provides the material and professional support to government and assisted schools. The office identifies the needs of the schools within the District. It then procures the physical and human resources from the Regional Education Office and distributes them to the schools according to specific needs. The DEO also provides professional support in form of inspection and advisory services. The DEO determines the nature of in - service activities needed in the District.

Apart from the DEO, Local Education Authorities (LEA), School committees and sometimes Parents Teacher Associations play an important part in directing the policy, organisation and development of individual schools.

2.3 Enrolment

The total number of primary schools in 1996 was 3,706. Most schools have both permanent and temporary structures for classrooms. Some schools are church buildings. In all there were 21,553 classrooms. Almost all schools have some children learning outdoors under trees. In 1993/94 the total pupil enrolment was 1,895,423. After the introduction of free primary schooling the enrolment skyrocketed to 2,860,819 in 1995 and stood at 2,887,107 in 1996 (MOE, 1996). This gave a national classroom-pupil ratio of 1:134. To reduce this ratio many classes are conducted outdoors and schools practice shift systems.

According to education statistics (MOE, 1996) 30% of the pupil population is in Std 1. The proportion gradually decreases to 5% in Std 8. Girls make up 47% of the school population. In Std 1 the proportion of girls is 50.3% and it gradually decreases to 39% in Std 8. This is mainly because girls register a considerably higher dropout rate estimated at 9% while boys register a dropout rate estimated at 6%.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) regards 6 years and 15 years as the minimum entry and maximum leaving ages respectively. However schools sometimes admit pupils below 6 years of age. Pupils with ages of 16 years and above are also found in the system. This is so basically because many Std 1 pupils enrol while they are above 6 years of age. Pupils also repeat standards when they fail, and dropouts are allowed into the system at any point. Therefore in any one standard the pupils are of different ages.

There are fewer girls than boys after the age of 11 years and after Std 5 on average girls are younger than boys. This could be because older boys persist in school more than girls. The situation is that the older the girls the greater the probability of leaving school due to social and psychological pressure.

Before Free Primary Education the net enrolment ratio (NER) was estimated at 60%. This represented a wide variation with some districts registering 92% while others registered only 40%. The reasons for such low NER were mainly that

· Most parents were not able to pay school fees.
· Schools were too far away for children to walk.
· The majority of the population could not appreciate the benefits of education.
· Social and cultural practices prevented school attendance.

In 1995 the new education plan set 90% and above as the target NER for the year 2000 (MG, 1995). The pertinent question to ask is whether indeed the benefits of school are more attractive than the current social cultural practices or are the benefits of schooling merely assumed to be there.

In 1990 the total number of teachers was 20,580 against a pupil population of 1,325,453. This gave a teacher pupil ratio of 1:64. According to the Malawi Education Plan 1985-95, one way of enhancing the quality of education was to reduce the pupil - teacher ratio. To achieve a 1:50 teacher- pupil ratio 5,929 more teachers were needed. But only 16,567 of the teaching stock were qualified and this gave 1:80 qualified teacher - pupil ratio and a shortfall of 9,942 qualified teachers. In 1996 after free primary school education the qualified teacher - pupil ratio stood at 1:88. A stock of 32,876 qualified teachers together with a force of 16,252 unqualified teachers gave a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:59 (MOE, 1990; 1996). According to the Ministry of Education (MOE, 1995) the introduction of free primary education changed the thinking of using 1:50 teacher - pupil ratio as a target. Instead a 1:60 teacher ratio was thought reasonable and the current status was seen to be within the teacher procurement target. What now remains is to train the unqualified teachers. The Malawi Integrated In-service Teacher Education Programme introduced in 1995 was designed to train these unqualified teachers. Ideally however the Ministry of Education targeted a 1:35 teacher- pupil ratio but settled for 1:60 because of the enormous costs associated with the achievement of 1:35 teacher-pupil ratio. While the thinking based on lower teacher-pupil ratios has its own significance it should also be noted that even then the workload per week per teacher can still be heavy. From another perspective low teacher-pupil ratios can still result in high classroom-pupil ratios which has its own underlying problems. Perhaps a better basis for teacher supply could be a balance between the distribution of teachers in classrooms respecting teacher-pupil ratios and the distribution of the workload amongst the teachers.

2.4 The Curriculum

The present primary school curriculum was introduced in 1988. The old 1982 curriculum was seen to have been outdated and therefore inappropriate. According to Kaperemera (1991) and Hauya (1993) the 1982 curriculum had the following shortcomings: -

· it was examination oriented

· it was overloaded with subjects

· it was obsolete due to rapid scientific, technological, socio-economic political changes

· it did not cater for a wide range of abilities, needs and interests

· the primary school was terminal for the majority. A new curriculum to provide life skills as well as preparing pupils for secondary school education was needed

· the curriculum tended to promote attitudes and values counter to the Malawi culture.

The 1988 curriculum has fewer subjects now. The subjects have fewer topics to be covered in the given time. Areas of study now include general and social studies which inculcate knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of the Malawian society. These studies prepare pupils in topical issues like the environment, gender, health and global cohesion. The weighting of the curriculum is such that literacy and numeracy are adequately addressed. It is now claimed that the new curriculum is a teaching and learning curriculum and not examination oriented. In all there are 13 subject areas with high weighting in Chichewa, English and Mathematics. Table 2.1 below shows the primary curriculum matrix and subject weighting.

Table 2.1: Primary curriculum matrix

Subjects	Std 1	Std 2	Std 3	Std 4	Std 5	Std 6	Std 7	Std 8	WTG
Chichewa	9	9	8	8	5	5	5	5	17.6%
Creative Arts	2	2	2	2	4	4	4	4	7.8%
English	5	5	7	7	8	8	8	8	18.3%
General Studies	4	4	4	4					5.2%
Mathematics	6	6	7	7	7	7	7	7	17.6%
Music	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	3.9%
Physical Education	1	1	2	2	2	2	2	2	4.4%
Religious Education	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	5.2%
Social Studies					5	5	5	5	6.5%
Agriculture					5	5	5	5	6.5%
Home Economics					4	4	4	4	5.2%
Needle Craft				2	2	4	4	4	6.5%
Science/Health					5	5	5	5	6.5%

Source: N.T. Kaperemera, 1990

According to Table 2.1 the claim that the new curriculum is less loaded seems to be valid only in the infant section and in Stds 3 and 4. The other upper standards have more than 45 periods a week which means that the timetable should be organised to accommodate more than 9 periods a day. This does not seem to be a light schedule. In fact teachers still complain of heavy teaching loads in the upper standards.

All pupils in Std 1 through Std 7 write end of year tests prepared by class teachers. Only those who pass are allowed to move on to the subsequent standards. Pupils who fail are expected to repeat. There is no official limit to the number of times a pupil can repeat a standard. In 1990 for example the rate of failure and by extension the rate of repetition ranged from 13% in Std 7 to 20% in Std 1 (MOE, 1990). However class teachers in consultation with head teachers and sometimes parents may promote some failures to the subsequent standards. The major reasons for doing this include:

· fear of growing size of classes in the subsequent year
· advanced age of pupils
· requests from parents
· lack of special education teachers to handle special needs pupils

The Ministry of Education (MOE) realises that there are many impediments to the teaching and learning process in primary schools and therefore encourages schools and teachers to promote failures to keep the repetition rate per Std below 30%. The education system has confidence in teacher prepared tests because teachers are trained in test construction and teachers' guides help them set appropriate tests. In addition, individual schools have examination committees which moderate all tests at the schools. Recently clusters of schools have started sharing tests making achievement results more acceptable than before.

According to MOE (1996) the dropout rates of Std 1 and Std 2 pupils were 13.2% and 8.4% respectively. This represented the highest rates in the system. There are several reasons which explain the persistence of this phenomenon. Some of them are listed below in order of importance:-

1. Teachers report of high rates of pupil absenteeism which make progress in teaching painfully slow.

2. There is a scarcity of teaching materials ranging from blackboards to text books. Children are not exposed to adequate enabling teaching and learning aids denying them the hands-on experience necessary at this stage of development.

3. There exist extremely adverse classroom conditions for the infants. When they are lucky the pupils are given classrooms but they sit on the cold/hot cement floor. If this floor is not cemented they sit on dirt. In most circumstances the infants learn under trees while seated on stones of all shapes. They try to gain wisdom while seated in this way. The adverse weather also takes its toll.

4. The enrolments are very large giving rise to large teacher- pupil ratios which make teaching almost impossible. In rural areas it is not uncommon to get teacher-pupil ratios in the vicinity of 1:200 (BDDCA, 1995).

5. Most teachers assigned to these classes do not have proper training for handling and teaching infants.

6. Inevitably there arises a great cultural shock between the home and the village on the one hand and the school and classroom on the other hand. Children do not seem to adjust quickly enough to the new classroom environment.

Under these circumstances it is apparent that the infant section needs considerable attention in order to improve the quality of education. The issues of failure, repetition, and dropping out stand out as the major dilemmas. Substantial political, social and material mobilisation has helped to bring children into schools. Now schools should find ways and means of holding on to the infants and helping them learn how to read and to write as quickly as possible. Communities should be further encouraged to take an interest in the learning of their children. Parents should check on the attendance and progress of their wards regularly. This may improve the problem of absenteeism and hasten the acculturation of children in schools. An appropriate, relevant and attractive curriculum for the infants is an important factor that may reduce absenteeism and failure. Proper learning conditions, at least a shelter of some sort, is a starting point for children to like school. Both communities and the Ministry of Education should see these as necessary conditions for improving teaching and learning standards. Also of paramount importance is teacher preparation for infants. The question to be asked is how much have teacher preparation programmes equipped teachers to tackle problems of large classes, how to handle infants and the lack of teaching and learning materials.

2.5 The Primary School Leaving Certificate

At the end of Std 8 pupils sit for a national examination called the Malawi Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations. These are prepared by the Malawi National Examination Board (MANEB). About 60% to 80% of the candidates pass the examinations. Since there are only about 8000 places for new entrants in secondary schools the primary to secondary transition rate is only 10%. However there is also a second provision for secondary school work in the form of distance education. This section absorbs about 27% of the Std 8 candidates.

As a result of the limited places in the secondary school about 60% of Std 8 candidates fail to move directly into the secondary school cycle. A recent policy change which encourages private organisations and individuals to open private schools has helped increase access into the secondary school. In 1994/95 the gross enrolment ratio stood at 4% while the net enrolment ratio was 1.5%. The government intends to increase the net enrolment ratio to 10% and the transition rate to 30% in each district by the year 2005 (MG, 1995).

The most unfortunate aspect of the transition from primary into secondary is that those candidates who do not find places in secondary schools must either try again by repeating Std 8 or join the labour market. This results in candidates repeating Std 8 as many as eight times trying to improve their chances of joining the secondary education sector and gives rise to a repetition rate of about 20%. It is estimated that it takes about 12 to 16 years to produce one primary graduate and that on average only 23% of a given cohort complete the primary school cycle (MG, 1995; BDDCA, 1995).

These figures clearly show that the internal efficiency of the primary school system is very low indeed. The issue of access is currently being addressed by the introduction of Free Primary Education. However, issues of teacher-pupil ratio, the quality of schooling, repetition, dropout and equity of participation by marginalised groups of children need to be addressed with utmost vigour even when these require enormous costs. It is now generally accepted that primary education is a key factor that brings socio-economic development for the developing world. As a measure to improve primary education the Ministry of Education has increased expenditure on the primary school sector from 48.1% of its budget in 1990, to about 80% in 1995/96. What remains now is to focus on ways and means of improving efficiency with the given resources. Policy issues seem to be central to the solutions.

2.6 Community Schools

One important policy reform has been the adoption of community-oriented primary education. The community is invited to contribute to the actualisation of formal schooling integrated with non-formal schooling. Community or village based schools provide better access to schooling for marginalised communities. Parents, community leaders, pupils and the school interact in order to bring about development within the school and the community.

Currently the government is co-operating with NGOs like UNICEF and the Primary Community Schools Project (PCoSP) to pilot such schools. The PCoSP intends to build 100 such schools throughout the country while UNICEF (US) has six schools in one district with very low levels of educational participation. In these pilot schools communities have been involved at all levels of decision making and implementation. Communities were asked to participate in issues like selection of school sites, designing of school buildings, construction of the schools, selection of teachers, provision of teachers' houses and school development. In some cases communities first constructed the schools and then called on NGOs and the government to take on leading roles in running the schools. Issues of the curriculum and payment of teachers' salaries are usually worked within government policy frameworks. To maintain standards across the community schools the role of teachers in the communities is also determined by government policy.

While the pilot phase seems promising (Hyde et al, 1996) the village community still needs more sensitisation to avoid conflict of interest among the stake holders. Here utmost care should also be taken to prevent the dilution of the quality of schooling.

Given that ultimately the community will be required to liase with government on how to run and maintain the schools, proper procedures for doing this need to be understood by both parties. In addition the roles of all concerned in the running of the schools should be clearly stated at the outset to avoid losing the very concept of community schooling.

2.7 The Secondary School Sector

The secondary school system in Malawi has remained geared to serving economic demands rather than social demands. This means that the development of the secondary school system is dependent on the expansion of the labour market and tertiary education. For this reason secondary school education did not expand as much as the primary schools. This resulted in limited access into secondary schools. The Malawi Distance Education College was designed to respond to the society's growing need for secondary education (MOEC, 1985).

The secondary school cycle lasts four years. The grades are termed forms. After two years national examinations called the Malawi Junior Certificate of Education Examinations prepared by MANEB are used to select candidates to continue to matriculate in secondary education. The Malawi School Certificate of Education Examinations again prepared by MANEB is used to determine those who have successfully completed secondary education in form 4. After this the graduates enter into different sectors of the economy and tertiary education.

Basically the schools are grouped according to how much the government contributes to their finances. Government Boarding and Government Day Schools are wholly funded by the Government and the Ministry of Education is the proprietor. Grant Aided Schools are owned by organisations, mostly churches and the government contributes to the finances of the schools. Private schools are owned by private organisations and individuals but the government does not contribute anything financially. The government recruits and distributes teachers in all government and grant aided schools. Private schools have their own arrangements for recruiting teachers. In 1990 there were 41 government schools, 25 grant-aided schools and 20 private schools giving a total of 86. The current policy of encouraging the establishment of private schools has resulted in the mushrooming of private schools of varying standards. It is therefore difficult to give the exact number of secondary schools at this juncture.

Unlike primary schools secondary schools are not under the jurisdiction of the DEO but instead are run directly by the Ministry Headquarters. This means that secondary school heads report directly to the headquarters. Only recently some administrative and professional matters have been decentralised and delegated to the Regional Education Office. These include inspection and advisory duties and some financial transactions. The headquarters still recruits and promotes teachers.

According to Education Statistics (MOE, 1996) there were a total of 57,812 secondary schools students in the 1995/96 school year. Girls constituted about 35% of the student population.

Teachers in secondary schools are required to hold at least a diploma in the various electives offered. A diploma is a university qualification conferred upon student teachers after three years of teacher training in various disciplines of education. Candidates who pass with merit or distinction are asked to continue the training to a university teaching degree level. In recent times experienced primary school teachers are invited to one of the government run colleges to pursue a two-year teacher education course leading to a diploma certificate. These teachers however are sent to teach in secondary schools and not in the primary schools. In special cases primary school teachers who have lower qualifications than a diploma are asked to help in subjects like Homecraft and Chichewa, which is the official local language.

The total teaching staff in secondary schools increased from 2,141 in 1992 to 2,948 in 1996. This represents teacher pupil ratios of 1:35 in 1992 and 1:20 in 1996. Unfortunately the teachers include staff who are under-qualified and a stock of expatriates. Furthermore there are shortages of teachers in specific subject areas especially in the sciences and mathematics. Some of the teachers are recruited on a temporary basis and this results in a high attrition rate which is expected to rise up to 8% by the end of the century (MG, 1995).

The workload of teachers is between 30 and 33 periods a week and there is a 1:2 ratio of diploma and degree teachers. In order to improve the supply of teachers in secondary schools the government plans to upgrade primary school teachers to diploma level so that they can teach in secondary schools. The government also plans to increase the intake of education students in the university or establish a new Secondary School Teachers College (MG, 1995).

The curriculum in the secondary school sector has been designed to meet middle level and high-level manpower needs. This means that the curriculum is aimed at getting secondary school candidates ready for direct employment and for entrance into tertiary education. Syllabuses and examinations are modelled after the General Certificate of Education in the United Kingdom. These are designed and approved by the Malawi Certificate Examinations and Testing Board (now MANEB) with the assistance of the Associated Examining Board for GCE in the United Kingdom. In all the range of subjects to cover the curriculum has been 21 to 23. After four years candidates sit for the Malawi School Certificate of Education Examinations. A pass with credit in a subject in the MSCE is equivalent to a pass at O-Levels in a corresponding subject of the GCE in the United Kingdom (MCE and TB, 1983).

To ensure that the calibre of candidates sitting for the MSCE examinations is appropriate Junior Certificate of Education Examinations are given in form 2. Only candidates who pass are selected to sit for MSCE examinations. The pass rate at the JCE level has ranged from 87.4% to 91.2% from 1992 to 1996. During the same period the pass rate at the MSCE level ranged from 51.9% to 69.9% (See Appendix 2).

In the recent past there has been mounting pressure for increased access into this level of education because transition rates from primary have declined in real terms due to the rapid growth of the school population. High repetition rates in Std 8 have also contributed to this decline. After balancing for social demand and economic demand the Ministry of Education plans to increase the transition rate from the present 10% to 30% by providing 30,000 new places in Form 1 in secondary schools by the year 2005. To do this the government will need to build 250 new secondary schools each with a capacity of 480 students. Further analysis shows that to do this the government will need to engage 6,000 additional teachers. Costs for the actualisation of this plan dictate that the programme should be carried out in phases (MG, 1995).

In addition to costs there has always been the danger that too rapid an expansion of the secondary school system can lead to a fall in standards. According to the 1973-80 Education Plan this hypothesis is supported by the following reasons:-

1. The entry standard is likely to be lowered to achieve the desirable intake.

2. A too rapid expansion is more likely to result in the recruitment of poorly qualified teachers.

3. The construction capacity might not cope with the demand.

4. It is thus prudent not to exceed the threshold rate where the quality of education will vary inversely to the rate of expansion.

In the case of the Malawi College of Distance Education the government only plans to address the disturbingly low quality secondary school education delivered. The government intends to achieve this by improving:

· the average classroom-student ratio to 1:70
· upgrade supervisors to diploma levels
· strengthen supervisory and advisory capacity
· provide adequate and appropriate teaching and learning materials.

Increasing access into the MCDE centres may be by the way of private enterprises only. The government has not committed itself to this task.

This sector of secondary school provision has been very inefficient indeed. For example the rate of passes in one sitting at JCE level has ranged from 66% in 1991/92 school year to 86% in the 1995/96 school year. For MSCE the rate of passes in one sitting has ranged from 5% in 1991/92 to 10% in 1995/96 (see Appendix 4). This entails candidates sitting for the same examinations several years before they get a pass (MOE, 1992; MOE, 1996). Management of Distance Education Centres has also been a very big dilemma; it is mostly arranged on an ad hoc basis by local authorities and instructors in charge. As indicated above, this provision of secondary education has not received priority in the new government plans.