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Girl
education project a resounding success in Malawi
By Hazwell Kanjaye,
Inter Press Service |
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 LILONGWE,
10 March (IPS) - Suzan Mwase who lives in a remote district
in Malawi, began primary school at the age of 10. Now, seven
years later, at the age of 17 she can read and write. |
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| The
only child of three in her family to have attended school, Suzan
is now proving to be a vital 'communications link' between her
family and the rest of the world. |
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| Apart
from utilising her numeracy skills for the benefit of her family,
Suzan is now an ''expert'' letter writer for her parents and
relatives all tenant farmers at a tobacco estate in Mchinji,
west of the Malawi capital of Lilongwe. |
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''She
is an asset and source of pride to us. We find her most useful
particularly when we want to write to our relatives. She also
reads and translates any communication to us,'' says Mabvuto
Mwase, Suzan's father.
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| Mabvuto,
53, was driven into tenant farming by poverty and landlessness.
Both Mabvuto and his wife, Tamanda, are illiterate. They also
failed to send their first two girls to school because they
could not afford the fees and the uniform. |
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| ''Suzan
is lucky. The project started when she was still of primary-school
going age. She was 10. But it was too late for her elder sisters,''
says Mabvuto referring to a 45.5 million dollar initiative launched
in 1991 to increase girls' performance -- access, persistence
and completion -- at primary school. |
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| The
project, called Girls' Attainment in Basic Literacy and Education
(GABLE) and funded by the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), waived school fees for girls who did not
repeat a class in primary school -- a decision aimed at attracting
girls to school and keeping them there. |
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| Tradition
-- stereotyping of women, household work and poverty are some
of the reasons that force many girls drop out of school. |
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| According
to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), only 32
per cent of Malawian women are literate. |
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In 1990, a year before the GABLE project began, annual
school fees amounted to 3.5 Malawi Kwacha (about 1.30 US dollars)
while uniforms cost over 6 Malawi Kwacha, almost double the
school fees amount per child -- a large amount for subsistence
farmers in country whose average annual per capita was 170 US
dollars. |
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| Although
many communities challenged the idea of abolishing fees only
for girls, mainly because of their traditionally ascribed preference
for boys, the Ministry of Education says the controversy helped
to spread awareness of the issues behind supporting girls' education
and many families have started sending their girls to school.. |
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| According
to the Ministry, in under five years, between 1991 when GABLE
began and 1996, girls' enrollments in primary school almost
doubled from 772,000 to over 1.5 million -- a feat which the
small southern African country had failed to achieve in the
almost three decades after independence from Britain in 1964.
|
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| The
number of girls, as an overall percentage of enrolments, rose
from 45 percent to 47 percent. Their enrolment in grade eight
also rose from 36 percent in 1991 to 39 percent in 1996. |
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| ''The
other important aspect is that the project made government increase
expenditure in education from 12 percent in 1991 to 23 percent
in 1998,'' says Evelyn Chinguwo, GABLE Desk Officer in the Ministry
of Education. |
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Chinguwo says, through the project, a Supplies Unit was set
up in the Ministry of Education to ensure speedy procurement
and delivery of educational materials. |
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| A
new ''gender sensitive'' curriculum was developed, new classrooms
were built and over 20,000 teachers were recruited and trained
to meet increasing demands. |
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| This
helped to improve the teacher-pupil ratio from one to 70 in
1991 to one to 58 in 1996. |
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| As
part of the project agreements, uniforms were no longer a necessary
condition for children to attend school and a new policy that
allows girls to return to school after giving birth was instituted.
This was a complete turnaround from previous practice which
saw girls being expelled when they fell pregnant. |
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| ''I
lost my future,'' she says. ''I was expelled from school, my
boyfriend was too young to take me up, my parents disowned me,
and my child died during delivery. I had nowhere to go ... Who
knows, I might have been at university by now if these chances
were there.'' |
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| When
government made primary school education free for both girls
and boys in 1994, the GABLE project was revised. It introduced
a scholarship programme, worth two million US Dollars every
year, covering school and examination fees, for all secondary
school girls who did not repeat in primary school. |
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| ''The
bursaries were a source of encouragement and competition because
we knew that if they worked hard, our enrolment at secondary
school would no longer be dependent on the availability of school
fees,'' says Agness Mwansambo, a marketing trainee who finished
secondary school last September. |
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| According
to USAID, in 1996-97 school year, some 42,000 girls benefited
from the scholarship programme -- over 40 percent of all girls
that were in secondary school. |
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| Complementing
the GABLE project in food insecure areas is a school feeding
initiative supported by the World Food Programme (WFP). The
project aims to increase girls' access to education by providing
food insecure households with rations whenever their girls attend
school for at least 18 out of 22 days of each month. |
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| Chronic
malnutrition is a widespread problem in Malawi and is one of
the major factors responsible for high infant and under- five
mortality. Almost 50 percent of Malawi children are reported
to be stunted as a result. |
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| A
recent study by the World Bank and the Malawi government indicates
that 68 percent of girls engage in domestic chores, some of
which is exploitative labour, and are likely to drop out of
school to ensure the household is maintained and survives. |
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| Winfred
Banmbuh, WFP representative said at the launch of the programme
recently that when the right to education is assured, the whole
nation gains. |
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| ''We
should do better in class,'' says Suzan. ''School is free, we
are fed and we have many role models. Every girl has the chance
to finish secondary school and I should do the same although
I started late.'' |
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| This
article is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced
provided that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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