Govt opens 11 technical colleges

Government has opened 11 of the planned 28 technical colleges across Malawi to provide technical skills and encourage entrepreneurship.

Minister of Labour and Manpower Development Henry Mussa said at the weekend that the opened colleges in the North are in Karonga, Mzimba and Nkhata Bay; in the Centre, they are in Nkhotakota, Dowa, Mchinji and Dedza while in the South , they are in Blantyre, Chiradzulu, Phalombe and Thyolo.

“As you know, these colleges will open in all 28 districts, before opening in all the 193 constituencies,” he said.

The minister said the colleges will initially provide training in five generic trades of brick laying, carpentry and joinery, metal fabrication and welding, plumbing and textile and design.

So far, Malawi has only had seven national technical colleges, namely Soche, Lilongwe, Mzuzu, Salima, Nasawa, Don Bosco and Namitete.

These national colleges have a capacity of 2 000 students against an estimated 50 000 school leavers every year, according to Mussa.

“Thus, from the five generic trades of 20 students per class, we shall have a graduation of 2 800 students per year,” said Mussa.

“That is no mean achievement when you consider that the national colleges have room for 2 000 students only.”

Mussa said the trades training will be offered at a token fee of K3 000 out of which K2 500 will be administration fee and K500 as examination fee.

“Since the labour market is limited, most of the graduates will end in self-employment, which will lead to the emergence of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This is important for a growing economy like Malawi,” he said.

Mussa said the technical colleges’ intervention will complement the subsidised building materials programme, saying since the housing projects, which will be done mainly in rural areas will need skills of the trained artisans.

He explained that the Malawi Development Bank (MDB) to be opened soon will have a window for providing startup capital loans for the SMEs.

So far, Mussa said, government is getting support from, among others, the International Labour Organisation, Unesco, the World Bank, African Development Bank and European Union.

Besides, he said, governments of the US, China, India, South Africa are also supporting the initiative through bilateral channels.