Malawi Govt report rates education sector poorly

A government report on Malawi’s Education Sector Performance for 2010/2011 has rated the sector poorly with Minister of Education, Science and Technology Eunice Kazembe hinting that it is worse than most neighbouring countries. 

In an interview after the launch of the report and opening of her ministry’s Annual Joint Sector Review meeting in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, on Wednesday, Kazembe said despite making progress in areas such as infrastructure development, the sector still registers poor performance.

“Our performance is not impressive at all. We have performed poorly as compared to most countries around us,” she said.

Kazembe said among areas affected are examinations results which have gone down and school dropout level which has increased, especially among girls.

“Seventy percent of pupils do not have basic skills and necessities for their learning and most of them drop out of school before reaching Standard 6,” she said.

The report, which was compiled with funding from Unicef, outlined several factors that have led to the poor performance that include lack of teaching and learning resources, insufficient teachers, disparities in enrolment, lack of encouragement on pupils, especially girls, and the huge teacher-pupil ratio.