Education standards are plummeting
In 1994, Malawi started implementing the free primary school education pledge the UDF had made during its election campaigns. The influx of students into schools prompted the government to build new school blocks and train new teachers to match, somehow, the burgeoning school-going population.
As this large primary school population graduated into secondary school, more secondary school spaces were needed. Fresh schools were built; the number of MCCs [Malawi Correspondence Colleges], whose name changed to community day secondary, also increased. A double-shift system, to accommodate twice the standard number of students, was implemented and is still successfully running.
Years later, universities had to expand, too, to absorb the large secondary graduates. Private universities were allowed to operate; some of which now provide similar or superior quality education. The number of university and college graduates has increased exponentially.
However, this great leap in the numbers of primary school, secondary school, university, and college graduates does not seem to have brought with it the leap in quality that previous graduates exhibited at work.
These days, some, not all, secondary school graduates cannot even perform simple multiplication, subtraction, or addition of numbers without the aid of a calculator. If you do not agree with our observation, please ask your recently graduated Malawi School Certificate of Education ward to multiply 99 x 9 or to subtract 77 from 1000. Give him or her 20 seconds to do so.
What is more bothering is the current crop of primary, secondary, and, disappointingly, even university graduates’ inability to write English correctly. It is not uncommon, these days, to hear graduates uttering statements like “One will have to fend for themselves”. What does “themselves” refer to in this sentence? “When a person is angry they can do anything.” And can you spot the mistakes in the two utterances? Syntax rules (grammar) are ignored even in serious government documents. Textual consistency, argumentation, and coherence are no longer considered serious issues. In one document, you see ‘behaviour’ and ‘behaviour’; ‘organisation’ and ‘organisation’. Then you ask yourself, Even at this high level? What is amiss?
Some will, of course, protest that as an independent sovereign African nation, Malawi should not be puritanical about writing English as though the English themselves bother to write our languages correctly.
Unfortunately, English is today what Latin was about 400 years ago. It has become an international vehicle of communication for trade, law, international relations, and other international affairs. Its use in formal documents and meetings is almost unavoidable.
Why is this generation so bad at writing and performing simple calculations?
Some speculate that our experiences in Malawi reflect international trends. Attention to good writing is down internationally. Others hold that the Malawi language curriculum has been diluted so much that quality is no longer an issue. Yet others feel our current problems are a result of teachers.
Teachers are not committed to teaching students. In the past, students were made to sweat to do good work. Negative incentives, punishment, such as not going home until you got something right; being made to sit on the floor until you worked hard enough to merit to get back on the chair; being made to slash or sweep the school yard and, in extreme cases, being flogged or skamboked were a favourite means of forcing students to do well. Sometimes, positive incentives, prizes, were also being administered to encourage students to do well.
However, teachers argue that in today’s Malawi, teachers are considered as lower-caste professionals. Parents storm schools shouting at teachers who reportedly shouted at their naughty children. Teachers are accused of verbal abuse, human rights abuses, this abuse, and that abuse. So, teachers, too, do what most Malawians do, report for work, teach, give assignments or tests, mark, and wait for time to knock-off and go home in peace. And in peace wait for their monthly allowance (check their pay slips, civil servants do not receive salaries). Gone are the days of voluntary drilling of students to perfect them. And gone, too, is quality.
In brief, our esteemed leader of the delegation, Genuine Prof Dr Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66, MEGA-1 says standards of education are plummeting. Standards need to improve and get back to those golden days. As a nation, we need to do something about it. And we must start hic et nunc. n
