At the start of school season back in Canada, it feels fitting to talk about the education system here. In Canada, we enjoy some of the best education systems available. Guaranteed primary and secondary education, free for all levels, independent of your gender, race or religion. No, it’s not perfect. But it’s pretty darn good. Yes, we complain about rising classroom sizes, and it is a real concern. We hear about low pay for teachers, and they likely have a point, seeing as they provide the foundation for our future generations. We debate the value of school uniforms and what films should be allowed.
But when you reach the point of debating school uniforms, you have it pretty good.
So, any guesses at what the numbers mean? At the government run school in Dedza there are:
3150 students
49 teachers
20 classrooms
This means that on an average day, one teacher will be in charge of teaching roughly 65 students all the basic primary subjects; 30 of those teachers won’t have classrooms to teach in, and roughly 1900 students will sit outside to do their lessons.
Blackboards are set up against the fences so that on good weather days students can sit outside. On bad weather days, they’re crammed into the few rooms and there’s no learning that day.
Unfortunately, the situation in rural areas is worse… I’ve heard rumours of 100+ students per teacher.
Primary education is free. Secondary is not. Nor are there enough spaces for all students to go to secondary school. Coming out of Standard 8 (grade 8), each student writes entrance exams to secondary levels. If their marks are sufficiently high, they may be admitted. Otherwise, there is the option to write the exams again the following season, competing with the next year’s students. With an ever increasing population, more students risk getting left behind. And while the number of students in a classroom decreases, the distance to school does not, further adding to drop out rates.
For girls, the situation is even more telling. There may be equal numbers of boys and girls in Standard 1 (Grade 1), there are likely a quarter that many by Standard 8 (Grade 8). In Forms 1-4 (Grades 9-12), the numbers of girls enrolled plummet, and they keep going down. One school recently reported that they had 8 girls registered in Form 4, down from 50 of previous years.
Further complicating the situation is the delayed pay to teachers. Besides low salaries, teachers are simply not getting paid. A primary school teacher and friend of mine, Elizabeth, has been waiting 5 months for her first pay check.
Getting into university is even harder. According to a Malawian newspaper this Sunday:
“Records have it that in 2007, about 3500 students across the country qualified for university selection. However, due to limited space, only 900 students were selected. But what about the other poor deserving students who have not been selected? No one, unfortunately, asked this question.
Silently, the poor deserving students who were but the victims of limited space just went home, speechless; with a bleak future. Come another year, the same happens, and this time, a larger population becomes victims of limited space.” (The Sunday Times, September 13)
Not eloquent, but it gets the point across. (And gives you a sample of the daily newspaper)
This leads to an interesting dynamic and demand for education in Malawi. Many people, men and women, young and old (often older… kids world-over don’t enjoy going to school) tell me again and again how much they want to go/go-back to school. They want to re-write their MSCE exams, they want to upgrade certificates for diplomas for degrees. Education is valued, but it gets a pretty shaky start.
Obviously, more schools are needed. So are more teachers. It’s well recognized and well documented. As a response to the obvious need, development trips (I can’t call a 4 week trip a project) and international volunteer teachers abound. Some are good; most are not. This is an example from a conversation I unfortunately overheard as I waited at customs in the Lilongwe airport.
Woman: “Oh, you’re American too! Where are you from?”
Man: “I’m from Texas. I’m here to build a school.”
Woman: “What church are you with?”
Man: “Baptist. You?”
Woman: “I’m from Chicago. I’m with ____ church (I forget the name). I’m here to build an orphanage.”
Man: “Good on you!”
Woman: “Yeah, you too.”
This is the challenge. We can probably all agree that a good primary education is essential. We can agree that the numbers above are shocking and unacceptable to our standards. (Our teachers struggle with class sizes of 30 let alone 100.) But is an individual or group of well-wishers from the States (or Canada, or the UK, or Germany, etc…) who has likely never built a school before (or much of anything involving bricks and mortar and mud) going to fix the problem?
They might manage to build a school block in the time that they are here, which will take a few of those kids into a class-room. They’ll also be undercutting the labour market by taking away jobs from Malawian’s who would be happy to be paid to build the bricks and the school rooms that are needed. It ignorantly ignores why there are not more schools or classrooms or teachers in the first place.
Schools and teachers are needed, but I’m loath to believe that international well-wishers who come here to build schools are the answer. It has to come from within and it has to address the deeper causes.
Why are more schools not being built by Malawians? Why are more local teachers not being trained? Why are they not getting paid reasonable salaries or on time (or at all)? Is it the lack of labour the major constraint or the inefficiency of the local planning department to secure the necessary approval for yet another school block?
If we don’t stop to think about and answer those questions (and more!), we will find ourselves in an everlasting cycle of aid provision. We will be addressing superficial causes. And we will do none of it fast enough.
It sounds like a cycle. If students do well, they may still not be able to continue, whether to secondary or post-secondary education. And if they do complete a degree, what will that do for them or their families? Can they afford the time and money to finish school when the benefits are so unclear? Is the learning they do relevant to their reality?
Maybe the lack of hope might be a reason the schools aren’t built in the first place.
How much learning happens outside of formal schooling? This sounds like another problem to me. From your posts, it sounds like there could be more and better communication between farmers, tradespeople and others of the community. Maybe apprenticeship programs would be practical for some, but that requires an experienced, knowledgeable and willing mentor.
My brother is teaching English in China and has classes of 60-80 students in the lower grades. Classes are lecture-style even at those ages. The families tend to take education more seriously than they do here, so it still works, but not efficiently, and the academic competition is fierce.
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Colleen Reply:
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Laura,
I’m not certain if it’s a cycle, but it’s certainly systemic. Part of the challenge here is that the culture for valuing education (like you mentioned in China) is still coming. It’s there, more in cities and towns than in villages, but there are a lot of barriers. For example, if a girl goes to school and gets pregnant, others in her community are less tempted to send their daughters to school too.
Another interesting article on the matter: http://www.zambian-economist.com/2007/02/more-than-woman.html
As for education/learning outside of the classroom; I don’t doubt that it happens, but certainly having a bookshelf (like in my place), or parents that read to you, or homework is not common… at all. There is other learning, like managing a shop, helping with the family business, maybe informally learning a trade or tending to a garden or house. But formal things that we are used to (ex: after school programmes, apprentiship programmes) are rare/non-existant.
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Love the info here, but tried to access the photos and the links don’t work. Can you fix them so we can enjoy the photos too? Thanks!
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Colleen Reply:
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Thanks Tracy! As for the photos, I’m working on it, but until then, you can check them out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colleenduncan/
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A cousin of mine recently traveled to a rural province in northern India with an organization to build a school. I asked her about the issue of using overseas volunteers rather than local labour, she said that while they fundraised to pay for local builders and brick-makers, the craftsmen just weren’t available in the area (heavy farming) to do the work. Using volunteers allowed the school to be built faster, so the children could use it. Which raises the question, is there a line between when it is okay for a “go and build a school” visit and when it isn’t?
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Colleen Reply:
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Elizabeth,
Every situation is different. Maybe in your cousin’s case that was true. But farming is a cyclical process; there are times when there is a LOT of work to do in the fields, and there are times when there is a lot of waiting. Waiting for the crop to dry, waiting for the rain to come, waiting through the dry season.
People do a lot during these waiting times. Some of them have other businesses, some cultivate near rivers and springs (Dambos in Malawi), some do piece work.
But the time when all the volunteers arrive (in swarms) coincides with the biggest periods of waiting since the crops have all been harvested a few months prior and we are in the middle of the dry season. This is the period of building. People make and fire bricks, they build houses and restaurants and walls. They repair and create. It seems (given the number and intensity of workers that threw up a giant brick wall next to my office in about 2 weeks), that if you offered a reasonable salary, people would be happy to supplement their incomes with some piece-work of building schools.
The alternative of course, is no school, or a really expensive flight for an American tourist.
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