President Peter Mutharika on Monday met directors of the Brooklyn Institute in Washington DC in the USA where he lobbied for support towards Malawi’s education sector among others.
Brooklyn Institute is one of the policy centres focused on universal quality education, conducting research on education and financing of the sector in the developing world.
Mutharika said the support will help his government continue prioritising relevant, accessible and high-quality education that will help propel Malawian youths to a better livelihood.
He said his administration is currently developing a new curriculum emphasising science and technology, to make education more responsive to the changing world.
Said Mutharika: “I must say Malawi is doing well so far. We introduced free primary education despite the many challenges that exist.
“We have already opened the Malawi University of Science and Technology [Must] and construction of the Mombera University, an animal science training institution, is set to begin soon.”
He, however, said the challenges facing the education sector stem from the fact that the country introduced free primary education with less than adequate classroom and bed space.
Mutharika stressed that correcting this will require financing and government is looking at how it can find resources to fund these activities, staffing for the new schools, universities and community colleges that have been established.
In her remarks, associate director of operations at the Brooklyn Institute, Jennifer Gamble, said their organisation will through various research it conducts, look at how best Malawi can mobilise resources to fund its education priorities.
Said Gamble: “This is a year of opportunity as we are looking at what has been achieved in the past years. We will review the progress made and examine how we can finance future projects.
“We will help the Malawi Government to source funding both from public and private financiers and use it effectively.”
The next meeting on global financing for education is scheduled to take place in Norway in July this year, where global leaders, institutions and other stakeholders will meet to discuss the post-2015 education goals and how they can succeed. n
