By Deborah Madeya:
It is a hot Monday afternoon. A psychology lecturer slides his laptop into a leather bag and dumps markers near one edge of a white board on which he has scribbled notes.
He walks out of the room with a majestic gait, a satisfied smile flitting across his face, perhaps assured that he has delivered a perfect lecture to his class.
But as he leaves, there is an air of anxiety in the room, not because the students have not grasped the content, but because there are more troubles beyond the room.
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Most of them are not sure about where their next meal will come from. They are even concerned about the safety of their belongings in rented residences in distant neighbourhoods.
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It is a recurrent tale of students in public universities nowadays. One of them is Lawrence Mangwinji.
The 23-year-old has, however, found a way of eking out a living, which he hopes will allow him to sail through to the final day of his stay at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (Mubas).
Mangwinji owns a shop where he sells electronic equipment, offers mobile money services and sells groceries.
“I used to have one meal the whole day. When I was lucky, I would buy a loaf of bread which I ensured lasted a week. I reached a point of having porridge without sugar,” Mangwinji says.
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He ventured into a small-scale business after a painful first-year span at Mubas. He is now in his fourth and final year.
“I bought a packet of amazon pops sweets and started selling them around the campus. With K2,000, my business started.
“With the upkeep allowance that I got from the [Higher Education Students Loans and Grants Board], I ventured into a business of selling electronic items,” Mangwinji says.
Educating children in the value of money from a young age will help them become savers rather than spenders, experts and studies say.
A 2028 Malawi financial literacy study found that in the past few years, adult Malawians gained greater access to formal financial services.
While only 17 percent of adult Malawians had access to formal financial services in 2013, this figure rose to 29 percent in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Malawi Institute of Education (MIE) is strengthening financial literacy in primary and secondary schools and teacher training colleges’ curriculum to align them with Malawi 2063 (MW2063), especially on wealth creation.
MIE spokesperson Moses Mailosi says the institute is determined to start implementing the MW2063-based curriculum by 2028.
“Incorporating financial literacy in curricula, along with other subjects, will equip learners with knowledge that is necessary for them to save and multiply money.
“MIE has been working hand-in-hand with the Reserve Bank of Malawi [RBM] to equip learners from primary to other levels of education with knowledge that will enable them to handle finances,” Mailosi says.
He adds that together with RBM, MIE developed sourcebooks where students can get supplementary knowledge on financial literacy.
Mailosi further says apart from RBM, the institute is encouraging other stakeholders to suggest other areas worth incorporating in the curricula.
“Through our literature review, we came to understand how other schools operate. For instance, in China, students are exposed to different skills, notably how to make a phone.
“As such, skill-based curricula will include specific areas such that our children will be going to school and learning how to make different items,” he states.
RBM financial literacy expert Madalitso Chamba concurs with Mailosi, saying syllabi review exercises that are taking place now will help stakeholders incorporate emerging issues.
Chamba says financial literacy was implemented using an integrated approach, where financial literacy topics were added to secondary school subjects.
“MW2063’s key focus is on wealth creation, where the aim is to have an inclusively self-reliant and worthy nation.
“That is why the financial literacy concept which is in syllabi is being shaped to be properly aligned with the development vision,” Chamba says.
Education policy analyst Victor Chikoti rues the fact that Malawi ignored financial literacy in school curricula for too long.
Chikoti argues that Malawi can achieve “a lot” if people know the importance of balancing the budget.
“We need to train our children, starting from primary school, since all departments of life are affected by financial management,” he says.
For some people, such as Mangwinji, it had to take grinding poverty to learn skills for survival in the university.
