There are people in this country who often tend to speak about a golden era. There is a generation that enjoyed the early fruits of independence and they love to tell us about how juicy those fruits were.
Malawians, who are in their 60s and above, had a relatively better childhood than the youth of today. When it comes to education, this generation had it better than what we have today and the reasons for this are in our eyes.
After independence, Malawi used to have a robust education system. The Kamuzu Banda regime capitalised on colonial establishments and made sure that Malawians got the best schooling possible.
The missionaries had established good educational facilities and they had invested enough personnel to run the same.
The Northern Region became the hub of education since the Livingstonia Synod directed most of its efforts to education.
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The Banda regime took over and continued to invest in education – introducing the University of Malawi, Kamuzu Academy, and several state of the art government secondary schools across the country.
Kamuzu understood and made it clear that a nation whose citizens are not well educated can never go anywhere up the ladder of development.
The best investment that a country can make is to invest in the knowledge of its citizens. But as we grow as a nation, we seem to be forgetting this.
Today, our education system is rotten to the core and nobody seems to be making any efforts in correcting this disaster. Perhaps the authorities do not even know that we are going down at an alarming rate.
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The problems in our education system began with the careless policies of Bakili Muluzi, the first president in the multiparty era.
When this man took over power, his concern was more for popularity than for the benefit of the nation. He made some decisions that made him popular to the detriment of the rest of us.
One of such decisions was the introduction of free primary education and the other changes that took place in the education system following that.
With the coming of Muluzi, we had Junior Certificate of Education holders teaching in secondary schools. Quality went down and our education system went to the dogs.
Now about 20 years down the line, we are reaping the fruits of the disaster. Today we have university students and graduates who cannot even write a complete sentence in any language.
We have produced graduates who cannot think independently and who have no idea of what critical thinking is. The only thing they get from their education is the certificate with nothing to show for it in their brains.
This is a generation that we want to entrust the future of the nation with. It will be a dark and gloomy future, for lack of better words.
Every year we hear of dozens of students scoring six points at Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations.
However, things are not the way they used to be. The six points of today are not a true reflection of the nature of our students. Rather, they reflect our poor system of assessment at MSCE.
Most of these students who get six points at MSCE are not smart enough and they struggle when they go to the university. Most of them are not even thinkers. They memorise and regurgitate – that is how they pass at MSCE. Most students these days are also fond of cheating and that is how they survive.
The government has a tough job to do if we are to get things back on track in the education sector.
Some months ago, there was an announcement that teachers without university degrees will not be allowed to teach in secondary schools. That is a commendable move in rectifying our multiple problems.
However, more needs to be done. The system of assessment at secondary schools needs to the rethought.
The Ministry of Education must invest more in primary education for that is where we have the roots.
Teacher motivation needs to be a priority if we are to improve at all. If we don’t do something about our dwindling standards in education, history will mock us.
