Ministry outlines education sector achievements
Ministry of Education says the achievements registered in the 2021-22 financial year indicate that the country is on the right path towards achieving aspirations set out in Malawi 2063, the long-term development strategy.
MW 2063 envisages a youth-centric inclusive wealth creating and self-reliant nation by 2063 and focuses on human capital development.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, Secretary for Education Chikondano Mussa said during the 2021-22 financial year, the sector made improvements on infrastructure, human resource and teaching and learning materials.
She said: “During the year we have seen the construction of Chikwawa, Mchinji and Rumphi TTCs [teacher training colleges] which will have a capacity of 600 teachers each.
“Apart from that, with support from the German Government, the ministry rehabilitated sewage and water systems at Blantyre, Lilongwe, and St. Joseph TTCs.”
Mussa said 308 new classrooms, 60 students hostels and 60 semi-detached teachers’ houses were constructed nationwide.
“In summary, the total number of permanent classrooms completed in 2021/22 financial year through various interventions has reached 851.
“This means that an additional learning space of a minimum of 51 060 learners has been created,” she said.
In response to the shortage of teachers, Mussa said the sector recruited 2 200 primary school teachers and 3 270 auxiliary teachers.
She said further achievements were made through the Secondary Education Expansion for Development (Seed) project where 38 new secondary schools were constructed, 14 499 bursaries were provided and 1 292 976 science and mathematics textbooks were secured to reduce the pupil-textbook ratio to 1:1.
Commenting on the report yesterday, education expert Steve Sharra hailed the achievements, but faulted the country’s reliance on auxiliary teachers, saying there are many qualified teachers who are yet to be employed.
“The hiring of auxiliary teachers is not a sustainable solution. It is a crash programme measure that we need to exit as soon as possible. There are more than 17 000 newly-graduated primary school teachers from the last three cohorts that have not been recruited so government should consider that,” he said.
The ministry has since organised the Education Joint Sector Review slated for November 9 to 10 2022 at the Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe to asses the sector’s progress.
The meeting will be held under the theme ‘Transforming Education for Accelerated Human Capital Development Towards Achieving Malawi 2063’.
