By Pemphero Malimba:
Quality education advocates have decried dwindling funding levels to the education sector, saying this is affecting the delivery of quality education in the country.
The development comes at a time the country has just commemorated International Day of Education, which falls on January 24.
The United Nations General Assembly set aside January 24 to enable stakeholders to reflect on progress being made in the education sector.
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One of the quality education advocates Limbani Nsapato told The Daily Times that the education sector is facing challenges, most of which emanate from inadequate financial support towards the sector.
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“We can see that since 2018-19, when the allocation to education was at 25 percent of the national budget, there has been a sharp decline to 15.6 percent in the 2023-24 financial year and, as a result of that, we have seen that, since 2020, the education sector has come up with a financial deficit of K1.6 trillion to implement the National Education Sector Investment Plan,” he said.
He said this is contributing to poor pace in promoting education standards in the country.
“This is a big challenge because what it means is that a number of things cannot be done. For instance, we may not have enough teachers, teaching and learning materials, classroom blocks, among other things,” he said.
Concurring with Nsapato, quality education advocate Wesley Mwambakulu said there is a need for government and development partners to consider increasing financial support to the sector.
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“It is unfortunate that these days, we still have a teacher teaching more than 60 learners. In other areas, learners are still learning under trees. This is because government does not have enough funds to employ more teachers and facilitate the construction of more classroom blocks.
“To address the problem, it is important that stakeholders— that is, State and non-State actors— should help improve the situation by mobilising the necessary resources,” Mwambakulu said.
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Committee on Education Vice Chairperson Ephraim Nayeja has said they would lobby for the allocation of more resources to the education sector.
“Since 2019, when I became Member of Parliament, we have been allocating the education sector a lion’s share but, at the end of the day, you will find that what happens on the ground does not reflect the amount of funds invested in education.
“We, as a committee, will, therefore, intensify checks and balances and holding the Ministry of Education to account for funds allocated to them. For example, if we provided funds for the recruitment of teachers, have the teachers been recruited?” Nayeja said.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Education spokesperson Mphatso Nkuonera has said the ministry is committed to improving education delivery at all levels through the implementation of programmes aimed at creating a conducive learning environment.
“Through the Malawi Education Reform Programme, we are constructing 10,900 cost effective classroom blocks in various primary schools in the country. We are also constructing additional classroom blocks, laboratories and libraries in over 100 community day secondary schools through the Equals project. Our main aim is to ensure that learners are learning in a conducive environment,” Nkuonera said.
He said the ministry has also committed to increasing the number of teachers in schools.
“We have recruited 4,200 auxiliary teachers in primary schools, with others more recruited by the Local Government Commission. These teachers are on government payroll. We have also recruited over 2,000 teachers in secondary schools, where we are targeting [to recruit] 5,000 teachers. We want the teacher-learner ratio to be at 1-60 in primary school and 1-40 in secondary school,” he said.
He disclosed that the ministry will also be procuring more textbooks.
Nkuonera said, for instance, that the ministry recently procured and distributed over 550,000 textbooks in all the 34 districts in the country. “We want to ensure that learners are easily accessing the books,” Nkuonera said.
