World Vision touts project to improve education

World Vision Malawi (WVM) has challenged government to adopt Unlocking Literacy Programme to improve education standards, especially in the country’s primary schools.

Speaking during a best practices dissemination workshop for literacy promotion in Lilongwe on Friday, WVM) director of advocacy Charles Gwengwe said literacy levels are still high in the country; hence, the need for collective efforts with government to scale up the project to more schools.

“This programme is one of the main models our teams are using to help learners attain age-appropriate literacy skills to children. We have noted that even though children go to school they have nothing to show about so this programme is the best,” he said.

Unlocking Literacy Programme is a set of interventions that involve reading assessments, teacher training on reading instruction and community action to improve the learner’s reading skills, carried out by WVM in 557 schools in 13 districts.

In his address, Gwengwe said their research established that children were not necessarily learning while they attended schools; hence, it transformed their basic education programming to improve learning outcomes, with a goal of increasing the number of children gaining literacy and numeracy skills

WVM is working with World Food Programme (WFP) on the project to let children have improved age-appropriate literacy in the targeted 557 schools that receive meals from WFP

Implementation districts are Kasungu, Lilongwe, Salima, Dedza, Ntcheu, Mangochi, Zomba, Chiradzulu, Phalombe, Mulanje, Thyolo, Chikwawa and Nsanje.

WFP country representative Benoit Thiry said they will continue with the school feeding to try to have education for all and have more children in school so that kids can learn.

Unlock Literacy Project was first known as literacy boost to help children learn to read and write at appropriate ages by, among other things, bringing fun in the learning process and courting participation of parents and community members in the education process.

In Malawi, nearly 90 percent of children cannot read, write or do basic mathematics even though half of them have attended school for at least four years. Globally, 250 million children face the same challenge.