Report of the National Launch of the 2013/14 Education For All Global Monitoring Report in MALAWI Secretary for Education, Science and Technology, Dr. MacPhail Magwira (centre) launching the EFA-GMR 2013/14 Report in Malawi flanked by Dr. Angimile Oponyo, Principal Secretary for Basic and Secondary Education and Mr. Victor Lungu, Director of Education Planning (left) and Ms. Christin Djondo, USAID and Dr. Patrick Kabambe, Director of Higher Education (on the right).
On 29 th April, 2013, Malawi joined the list of countries that have launched the 2013/14 Education for all (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR). The launch of the GMR had a lot of significance to the Malawi nation because of a number of factors. Firstly, the launch took place after twenty years of implementing the Free Primary Education. It was, therefore, imperative to assess progress that Malawi was making in her efforts to achieve EFA. Secondly, the launch happened at the turn of Malawi s fifty years of colonial independence. It is every Malawian s expectation that as the country turns 50 years of independence on July, 6 th this year, some assessment of the progress that Malawi has made in various sectors including the education sector should be done. Finally, the launch took place when Malawians were just a few weeks to vote in Tripartite Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government General Elections. The launch therefore happened at a very critical point in the history of Malawi and it epitomised a turning point in Malawi s education development. It acted as a beacon of hope for a new beginning, - a rebirth if you will, for Malawi s reverberated new commitment amongst all her stakeholders to the attainment of EFA goals and for the post 2015 agenda. The launch was done by the Secretary for Education, Science and Technology, Dr. MacPhail Magwira who is also the Chairperson of the Education Sector Working Group. The Group is co- Chaired by Ms. Christine Djondo of USAID - Malawi. In his speech, Dr. MacPhail Magwira emphasised the importance of keeping track of Malawi s progress towards EFA and to assess how Malawi compares with the rest of the global community. Dr. Magwira expressed happiness that Malawi was able to launch the report. He shared with the meeting his Dr. MacPhail Magwira, Secretary for Education, Science and Technology experiences and sentiments that members of the UNESCO Executive Board expressed when he attended the 194th session of the UNESCO Executive Board from 2 nd to 15 th April, 2014. Prior to the launch, participants received and deliberated on the Malawi Education Sector progress Report for the quarter ending on 31 st December, 2013. Malawi s education sector is guided by the National Education Sector Plan (NESP) (2008 2007) which reflects intended strategies, policies and activities aimed to improve access, equity, quality, relevance governance 1
and management of the sector. The NESP reflects Government s commitment to both regional (Southern African Development Community and the African Union) and international (the Millennium Development Goals, and EFA targets and priorities). The Government of Malawi entered into a Joint Financing agreement with its development partners in 2010 to adequately finance Malawi s NESP on the condition that Malawi subscribes to certain prescribed conditions, one of which is Government s commitment to monitoring progress towards NESP objectives. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, convenes quarterly Sector Working Group (SWG) meetings to discuss and evaluate progress and strategize future plans for meeting national, regional and international goals and objectives. The Sector Working Group meeting discussed monitoring reports of the sector performance drawing from the Education Management Information System (EMIS), Budget Reviews, District reports, Programme of Works, District Education Plans, procurement reports and other evidence in line with the National Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems. The meeting also discussed financial statements for the 1 st and 2 nd quarter of the 2013/14 financial year. Speaking earlier during the SWG meeting, the Co-Chair, Ms Christine Djondo indicated that as Malawi was about to go for the polls, the education sector was at a turning point due to the suspension of donor support which had affected delivery of services including the education. She observed that some of the statistics were alarming. Construction targets were missed. Pupil-Classroom ratios were increasing (from 101:1 in 2010 to 108:1 in 2013); Repetition and Drop out rates had become worse (Repetition had risen from 20 2
per cent in 2008 to 25 per cent in 2013 for boys and from 19 per cent in 2008 to 24 per cent in 2013 for girls. Drop out rate was 10.5 per cent for girls and 6.7 per cent for boys in 2008. In 2013, it had risen to 12.3 per cent for boys and 8.6 per cent for boys. The pupil-teacher ratios had, however, improved from 78:1 in 2008 to 69:1 in 2013. Ms Djondo noted this as positive and attributed it to the accelerated teacher training programme (Initial Primary Teacher Education Open and Distance Learning (IPTE-ODL) which had placed over 3,500 new teachers into the system. An additional 3,469 new teachers were trained through IPTE regular two year teacher training programme. Despite these milestone interventions the report indicated that the primary sub-sector required about 10,000 teachers to achieve the target set in Education Sector Improvement Plan (ESIP 1) by 2015 of PTR of 60:1. The Status of EFA goals in the world A presentation that was made based on the GMR indicated that, with the deadline for the Education for All goals less than a year away, not a single goal will be achieved globally by 2015. People in the most marginalized groups have continued to be denied opportunities for education over the decade. Fiftyseven million children are still failing to learn because they are not in school. One-third of primary school age children are not learning the basics, whether they have been to school or not. The report emphasizes that an education system is as good as its teachers. Unlocking teachers potential is therefore essential to enhancing the quality of learning. The report stressed that it was however not too late to accelerate progress. There was need to put in place a robust global post -2015 education framework to tackle unfinished business while addressing new challenges. The 2013/4 EFA GMR is divided into three parts: Part 1 provides an update of progress towards the six EFA goals; Part 2 presents clear evidence that progress in education is vital for achieving development goals after 2015. Part 3 puts spotlight on the importance of implementing strong policies to unlock the potential of teachers so as to support them in overcoming the global learning crisis Goal 1: Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Despite improvements, far too many children lack early childhood care and education. In 2012, 25% of children under 5 suffered from stunting. In 2011, around half of young children had access to preprimary education, and in sub-saharan Africa the share was only 18%. 3
Goal 2: Universal Primary Education (UPE) Universal primary education is likely to be missed by a wide margin. The number of children out of school was 57 million in 2011, half of whom lived in conflict-affected countries. In sub-saharan Africa, only 23% of poor girls in rural areas were completing primary education by the end of the decade. If recent trends in the region continue, the richest boys will achieve universal primary completion in 2021, but the poorest girls will not catch up until 2086. Source: 2013/14 GMR Goal 3: Youth literacy and life skills Many adolescents lack foundation skills gained through lower secondary education. In 2011, 69 million adolescents were out of school, with little improvement in this number since 2004. In low income countries, only 37% of adolescents complete lower secondary education and the rate is as low as 14% for the poorest. On recent trends, all girls from the poorest families in sub-saharan Africa are only expected to achieve lower secondary completion in 2111. 4
Goal 4: Adult Literacy Adult literacy has hardly improved. In 2011, there were 774 million illiterate adults, a decline of just 1% since 2000. The number is projected to fall only slightly to 743 million by 2015. Almost two-thirds of illiterate adults are women. The poorest young women in developing countries may not achieve universal literacy until 2072 Goal 5: Gender equality Gender disparities remain in many countries. Even though gender parity was supposed to be achieved by 2005, in 2011 only 60% of countries had achieved this goal at the primary level and 38% at the secondary level. Percentage of Adults literate in Sub- Sahara and Middle East regions Goal 6: Education Quality Poor quality of education means millions of children are not learning the basics. Around 250 million children are not learning basic skills, even though half of them have spent at least four years in school. The annual cost of this failure - around US$129 billion. Investing in teachers is key: in around a third of countries, less than 75% of primary school teachers are trained according to national standards. And in a third of Source: Sub-Saharan Africa Draft Regional Synthesis, Harare Sept-Oct. 1999. countries, the challenge of training existing teachers is worse than that of recruiting and training new teachers. Malawi EFA Profile Despite an average EFA development index of 16 th out of 28 African countries (UNESCO Dakar 2012) and many positive developments, education coverage in Malawi remains low. Malawi stands far from the EFA goal of universal primary education because of high primary dropout and repetition. There is need for the primary education subsector to be given more resources for the system to expand; out of school children must be enrolled; drop out and repetition reduced; and the allocation of teaching staff in schools improved. A better quality, more equitable and efficient secondary education should be developed; and data production capacities strengthened, to ensure better planning, monitoring and performance. 5
Source: UNESCO Dakar 2012 6