Malawi needs balanced education—Molande

The Ministry of Education is planning to make all humanities elective in secondary schools. What does this mean and what effects can this have on the nation? EPHRAIM NYONDO talked with Bright Molande, dean of humanities at Chancellor College.

Q: What was your immediate response to the news?

A:

By making all humanities elective, the government is telling the world that the humanities are not important. They are saying a country can do without them, and they are misinformed and ill-advised.

What they are doing is preparing a recipe for chaos. Education is a system and we are going to see chaotic scenes across the system. Primary schools still teach a lot of humanities. Where is the Ministry going to get teachers for that primary education if they kill humanities in secondary school? Are they going to go back and change the primary school curriculum or will they send science teachers to teach humanities in primary schools?

I also think we have a ministry of Education that does not itself understand secondary education and its place in national development. Secondary education is general education that prepares the majority citizens in the middle group of society. Many Malawians will agree that after our secondary general education, we proceed to pursue different careers and specialisations that are not necessarily in sciences. And the Ministry cannot narrow it down to an education that prepares scientists only. And by marginalising humanities, the ministry is ignoring some key education goals which the ministry itself generated. These are the goals on which Malawi education is founded. Why should government contradict its own national goals?

Currently, it is a very small percentage of Malawians that goes to university. Not everybody goes to university to specialise in sciences or to become a science teacher. How do we prepare the human resources for the many non-scientific careers in our society? Government may end up creating unemployment once we have millions of secondary school leavers who are ill-prepared for the non-scientific job industry.

Q:

What is the position of the university?

A:

No more humanities? It’ is a dead dream. Can you really say “no more humanities” in a human society? Even the scientists, as long as they are human, need a good knowledge of humanities. But I think I must add something to your question. I am dean of humanities, yes. But I am also an educationist because I also studied education as a literature or English teacher. I understand what the government is trying to do, and the result is going to be nothing but chaos.

Q: Will the university continue to teach humanities once government has stopped teaching the subjects in secondary school?

A:

The University of Malawi will continue to teach humanities in spite of all policies that harbour a death wish for us. Because we are all human, we need a country that understands our own humanity. We still need to train people who understand human nature, culture and society. There are people who think that you can develop a country in science laboratory only. But I don’t think that would be a human society. If we stop teaching the humanities, we forfeit a sacred duty to humankind.

Q:

Do you think this problem is unique to Malawi?

A:

Yes and no. They have a similar problem in the United States, now! The government is being accused of placing undue emphasis on science education at the expense of the humanities. The difference is: They have quite a war there which is being taken to Congress. There are many Americans who are protesting. Enlightened Americans trained in humanities and social sciences have formed a national humanities committee which delivered its protest report to government on June 12 2013. This patriotic committee has warned that by marginalising humanities and narrowing the focus of education, America is ignoring the very premises that made America great. The matter is likely to be debated in their parliament. Most likely, the government will listen to the people. But we are still in a deep slumber in this country and we will wake up when the chaos takes its toll.

Our other difference is that the government here is implementing the policy in ignorance, just because the Americans are doing it. In our case, we have ignored just so many factors that matter for policy delivery in our context.