Education in Malawi

One of the things that interested me while I was in Malawi was the difference in the education system as compared with America. Primary school, roughly equivalent to what we call kindergarten through eighth grade in America, is free. I am fairly certain that the government sponsors primary education, During our travels, we saw many school children, many dressed in uniforms, walking to and from school.

A Saturday children’s program we visited on our second full day in Malawi used the grounds of a primary school. The building was small. It appeared that all grades shared one classroom. If memory serves, there were few, if any, of the accoutrements in the school that we are accustomed to in America. Before traveling to Malawi I knew that school supplies that we take for granted here in America –– books, papers, pens and the like –– are often hard to come by. Many of us traveled with pens and pencils to distribute to children. Many Malawian children attend at least some primary school.

The situation is quite different for secondary schools. We were told that for every 10 to 12 primary schools there is one government sponsored secondary school. Entrance is by exam, where the exams are extremely competitive. I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that government–sponsored secondary schools are free.

There are also private secondary schools. While admittance is also exam–driven, I got the impression that the exams for private secondary schools were not as competitive as for the government sponsored secondary schools.

Sad to say, there is a gender disparity in secondary schools. One figure we heard is if 15 girls start secondary school in what they call form 1, only one will graduate.

There are four grades, or “forms” in secondary schools. I got the impression that students enter form 1 around the age of 11 or 12. After form 2, they must pass a test. If they fail, they either repeat the test, or they or out of school. After the graduate form 4, they must pass another test if they want to go to the University. The government pays the university fees for qualifying students. Students typically start university at the age of 16.

Many of the community–based programs that we visited try to include money for a couple of secondary school scholarships in their budgets. These scholarships then go to teenagers in the villages where they work.

People I met, part II

The other day I wrote about some of the people I met in passing while I was in Malawi. There were many people that we met who worked with Malawi-based organizations. In this group I include people that we met with over dinner as well as representatives from the community-based organizations we visited, and a couple of hospitals.

They are all extraordinary people with the same generosity of spirit and warmth that I wrote about elsewhere. They took time out of busy schedules to meet with us and answered our questions. Some of them acted as tour guides, showing us how to get to the remote villages where they worked. I always felt welcomed, never once feeling like we were imposing. Quite the contrary.

I wish that I could find the words to express that spending time with each and everyone of these folk had a profound and lasting impact on me. As the weeks have gone by, I have found myself thinking about each and everyone of them. When I do, I offer a prayer.

People I met

I have been reviewing my blog entries over the last couple of days. I don’t think that I have done justice to all the wonderful people that I had the occasion to spend some time with during my two weeks in Malawi last June. I am not just talking about the staff and volunteers working with the various programs that we visited, all but a couple being funded by the Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA). There were also people we met along the way: staff in the various hotels and lodges where we stayed, the children and adults we met in the villages we visited, storekeepers, customs officials at the airport in Lilongwe, South African Air employees at the airport, people we met in restaurants, etc. As I write this over four months after I returned home from Malawi, I am certain that there are people that I have left out of this list.

In some cases the people who stand out the most to me, over four months later, are the ones who are nameless, with whom I had the very briefest of encounters.

There was the smiling warm welcome of the customs officials at the airport the day we arrived.

All the children who mugged for our cameras.

The entire congregation at the Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in Salima where we worshipped our first Sunday.

The foreign currency exchange teller the one time I exchanged currency at a bank. He had a nice smile.

The two young men at Senga Bay who sold me some beads.

A woman who worked at the Malawi Department of Health who told me where the restroom was. I did not know where to go, so I asked a woman in an office. She was very nice.

A couple of female police officers.

The students at the Lydia Projects secondary school.

One of the managers at the Hotel we stayed in Zomba.

The waiter who brought me some bread to eat during a power failure because I was feeling queasy from taking my malaria pill on an empty stomach.

A woman tending pigs in one of the piggeries we visited.

Some boys learning carpentry.

Our guide for our two-hour trip on the Shire River in Lilondwe.

A child with AIDS sitting in his mothers lap.

A village chief.

A young Malawian man who is a mountain biker.

Our guide at the Mua Mission who told us about tribal customs in Malawi, and how they differed from region to region.

Girls jumping rope.

After clearing customs at the airport in Lilongwe for the first leg of my flight home, Lilongwe to Johannesburg, I found that the rest room in that portion of the airport was closed. The customs official let me back into the main terminal to go to the restroom without having to clear customs a second time.

When people die

I was going through the journal I kept while I was in Malawi looking for my notes on the education system in Malawi, when I ran across something that I have been meaning to write about. That is, what happens to the possessions, including a house, when someone in Malawi dies.

In America, unless there is what is known as a Last Will and Testament providing otherwise, the house, possession, money, etc. will probably go to the spouse and children (or other family members) after the decedents debts are paid. I am being extraordinarily simple minded in that statement because I want to make a comparison to the Malawian way of doing things. We heard a couple of stories of how it works in Malawi. To put it simply, in Malawi the brothers of a man who dies can come and take the dead man’s property, leaving his wife and children with nothing. There was the young man, D, whom we met early in our trip. D had to leave the University in his third year when his father died to help support his family.

Another women we met, C, was finishing her Ph.D. at the time we met her. Her first husband died, and his family came and took everything. C was left with nothing. She worked hard, eventually going to graduate school where she met the man who became her second husband. C told us that there is a new law that says that the wife and children can keep the dead husband’s property.