Malawi primary education is not free—CSO

A survey by the Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) has indicated that despite primary education in public schools being free, pupils are forced to pay some form of payments for different development projects.

Announcing the results of the survey at a workshop in the capital, Lilongwe recently, Csec executive director Benedicto Kondowe said in all the sampled schools, authorities demanded some payment from learners.

The payment, he said, included textbook revolving fund, development fund, mock examination fee, final examination payment and general purpose fund.

Said Kondowe : “We cannot say there is free primary education when learners are paying money for the running of their school. This is unfortunate considering that many parents cannot meet such demands because they are poor.

“As a result, there is high possibility that learners from underprivileged families drop out of school when they fail to raise such amount.”

Kondowe claimed the payments that schools demand from learners are more than the tuition fee they used to pay in the past.

“Government introduced free primary education to enable more poor Malawians to access education, but now learners are paying about 200 percent more than they used to pay as tuition fee before government introduced primary education.

“We should just call it free tuition fee primary education because learners still pay more money for other development projects,” he said.

The survey has recommended that government should ensure adequate financing of development and maintenance costs of schools.