The Malawi Government’s decision to provide free primary education was a big step in the right direction for everyone. A dramatic increase was immediately seen in the numbers attending school, but sadly the excess demand for additional resources could not be met. In Mulanje Mission Primary School there are now over 2500 children with just 40 teachers. Apart from being greatly understaffed, class sizes are unecessarily large and poorly distributed to cover the various subjects, with inadequate teaching material. Most of the classrooms do not have desks so the children sit on the floor. Recent developments have seen the construction of a new toilet block of twenty toilets and the repairment of a faulty hand pump that supplies water to the school compound. We are also currently renovationing the classrooms one by one.

 

Teachers are meant to have living accommodation on site as this is a rural area but at present there are only seventeen houses; most of which are in a bad state of repair and lack electricity. The average salary of a teacher is a mere 40 kwacha (1 euro = 203 kwacha) per month. Despite all these problems the school has a good pass rate in the Government Standard (Grade) but of those passing only about 50% are able to find places in Secondary School.

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