Malawi-Scotland Partnership (Masp) has said increasing shortage of learning and teaching materials in local institutions of higher learning contributes to poor performance among students.
Masp board chairperson Dr. Matthews Mtumbuka said this on Thursday when the partnership donated textbooks to University of Malawi’s The Polytechnic on behalf of the Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU).
“I wonder how we passed examinations with only two hours access to books during my time at The Polytechnic. No wonder, Malawian students excel when they go to Europe and America for further studies because books are readily available and are in abundance,” he said.
Mtumbuka said Malawi Ngwira, a Malawian teaching at GCU conceptualised the idea to donate books to the country’s colleges after collecting the books from his shelves and friends and was later joined by Professor Ian Cameron who is dean of the School of Engineering and Built Environment.
“GCU has donated 425 textbooks and we are also taking some to Mzuzu and Catholic universities,” he said.
Dr Nancy Chitera, vice-principal of The Polytechnic, hailed GCU for the donation, saying it has come at the right time when they are promoting student-based teaching system.
“We are encouraging students to read and search for information and this is only possible when there are books. They now have reference books and the lecturers, too, will benefit a lot from the books,” said Chitera.
Among the books donated are those in project management, quantity surveying, real estates, infrastructure asset management, engineering and construction management. n
