Girls’ education in Malawi status report

Abstract

The report has outlined barriers that affect girls’ education in Malawi and gives the statistical outline of the status of girls’ education in different categories and levels of education for primary and secondary schools. It also touches on the necessity of education, starting with the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills that are essential for survival in the fast changing world. The status report portrays the importance of education as if gives an opportunity to develop social skills among learners and especially the girl child. CARE Malawi (2010), emphasizes that Malawi is one of the countries that have keen interest to ensure every girl goes to school. This report explores possible solutions to barriers to girls’ education that affect the girls in a negative way. These are harmful cultural practices, poverty, illiteracy of parents, cost of schooling, distance to school, lack of role models, pregnancy, marriage, gender based violence, lack of interest and lack of proper teaching and learning methods. This report used data from Education Management Information System (EMIS) and other statistics booklets produced with an aim of capturing data on girls’ education. Even though data on girls’ education might be scanty in Malawi, however, this report provides a general picture which is showcasing on how important it is to educate the girl child for a nation as they contribute to the country’s development agenda. It is in this respect that the status report highlights on what is working and what is not working with reference to the policies and strategies on girls’ education in order for stakeholders to discover areas that need further improvement to achieve the intended purpose on the promotion of girls’ education. Although government, development and implementing partners and other stakeholders in the promotion of girls; education are working tirelessly to overcome the known barriers to girls’ education, still girls lag behind in many areas such as in completion and survival rates. There is also limited participation of women and girls in decision making positions for working women. Girls spend very little time in school due to family responsibilities while boys are given ample time to learn. It is therefore recommended that deliberate efforts should be made to give girls a platform to perform better in school, such as provision of bursaries, change rooms, WASH facilities, Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) to address issues of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in schools, communities and the workplace. And to make sure that the campaign on the implementation of the re-admission policy is taken seriously so that drop-outs are given a second chance to access education.