A Malawi National Commission of the UNESCO study has revealed that five million adult Malawians of 15 years and above are illiterate; meaning they cannot read or write.
As Malawi joined the rest of the world to celebrate the International Literacy Day on September 8, stakeholders expressed fears that Malawi might not achieve the 2015 Education for All Goal, of reducing adult illiteracy by 50 per cent for the total population.
People that are under 15 years account for 49.1 percent of Malawi’s 12 million people while those above 65 years constitute 2.1 per cent.
Malawi’s literacy rate has dropped from 86.7 per cent at the time it became a Republic in 1966 to 37.2 per cent now.
A study by Malawi National Commission of the UNESCO reveals that the number of illiterate adults was projected at 1,976,218 in 1977 but rose to 3,848,414 ten years later before hitting 4.6 million during the 1998 population and Housing Census.
Nearly 40 per cent of Malawi’s entire population are illiterate.
“Malawi’s illiteracy rate demonstrates that as the population grows, the number of illiterates also grows,” says a Trustee for the Link for Education Governance Limbani Nsapato.
He said unless there is political will to educate everyone, Malawi will not achieve universal literacy which will be in conflict with local and international goals.
“This logically means the country will never develop,” said Nsapato “It is almost certain that rather than reducing the figures the country will actually be contributing to the already outrageous figure of the over one billion adults that are illiterate globally.”
But Deputy Education Minister Olive Masanza said the continued collapsing of the literacy levels could be due to an increased number of primary school drop outs.
“Most of those that leave school do so at standard 5 before even acquiring basic literacy and numerical skills,” she said.
Government statistics show that National Adult Literacy Programme launched in 1986 has failed to attain its goals of reaching out to at least two million of the 4.6 million illiterate adults by the year 2000.
By 2005, the programme had only managed to reach out to 730,000 learners which are less than 30 per cent of the target.
Nsapato thinks one of the stumbling blocks to achieving this has been lack of a ‘credible and costed policy on adult literacy’ to guide the National Adult Literacy Programme.
While Masanza says government has been reviewing policies and strategies for adult literacy programme since last year, Nsapato thinks the process is taking too long.
He said the other problem is also said to do with Malawi’s laws as currently the country is using an old fashioned 1962 Education Act which Nsapato says is unsuitable.
“It does not have legal provisions required to accelerate and enforce the implementation of adult literacy programmes in light of current day social and economic transformation,” Nsapato said.
In 2003 government started reviewing the Education Act to incorporate new winds of political changes that had replaced the single party authoritarian rule and adopted a multiparty democratic government system.
Nsapato said “What is required is to step up the gear to finalise the review.”
Government is supposed to provide at least 3 percent of its total spending in education to adult literacy programme. But currently, this is not the case.
The 2007-2008 budget has provided K43 million (US$307, 142) for adult literacy-related activities, which is less than 1 percent of the nearly K26 billion (US$185.7 million) allocated to education services.
According the Malawi Education for All Plan of Action 2005, the government is supposed to provide at least K155. 2 (US$1.1 million) annually, for adult literacy programmes.
He said due to inadequate funding there are crucial areas that require funding that are neglected threatening the implementation of the programmes.
Nsapato says the government needs to urgently increase the monthly honorarium for instructors or facilitators of adult literacy classes from the current K500 (US$3.5) to a reasonable figure in line with local and international practice.
A recently published report by the Global Campaign for Education and UNESCO titled ‘Writing the Wrongs’ points out that one of the international benchmark for motivating facilitators is ensuring that instructors or facilitators of adult literacy be paid at least equivalent of the minimum wage of a primary school teachers for all hours worked.
A Malawi primary school teacher receives K6, 500 (US$46.4) a month.
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