By Cathy Maulidi
Research which the Ministry of Education conducted has revealed that 87 percent of learners in standard 1 to 4 cannot read comprehensively, prompting the ministry to call for a quick remedy.
Principal Secretary for Education Chikondano Mussa said this during an engagement with the media when giving an update on what is happening in the ministry.
Mussa said due to challenges facing the education sector, many junior learners are struggling to read comprehensively, a thing that also affects their foundation.
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“Studies that have been conducted globally have revealed that, in [the] global north, 30 percent of children who are 10 years old and are in grade 4 are able to read with comprehension while 70 percent are not able to read. The bottom line is children living in the global north are not reading.
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“Then, we come to the global south, where Malawi is: 90 percent of learners who are in standard 4 and [are] 10 years old are not reading. Only 10 percent [of children] in the global south are reading,” she said.
Mussa said Malawi did its own research and found that, at age 10, only 13 percent of children in standard 4 are able to read with comprehension.
“We discovered that, in Malawi, 87 percent of children in standard 4 are, at age 10, unable to read. What does that mean? It means children between standard 1 and 4 have not been able to access the curriculum because it is presented in print and since they can’t access their own curriculum, they can’t read,” Mussa said.
She said, in response to such findings, the ministry has developed a five-strand strategy to respond to the problem of learning poverty, which is at 87 percent.
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“We want to start deploying teachers, who have passion for teaching, to the infant section; teachers who have demonstrated capability to teach in the infant section. Head teachers are being advised to deploy teachers who have passion and the zeal to teach little children to that section,” she said.
Meanwhile, quality education advocate Steve Sharra has asked the ministry to look at the root cause of the problem.
“Yes there are some teachers who are passionate about teaching in junior grades but the ministry has to find out why some are not passionate. There is a need to improve teacher welfare and morale because most teachers are yearning for that,” Sharra said.
