Malawi introduced Free Primary Education in 1994 soon after democratic elections.
Enrollment dramatically increased from 1.9 million in 1994 to almost 3 million in 1995.
However, the resource implications were enormous. For instance, with a total of 5106 schools
in the country the infrastructure shortage is serious with a gap of 24510 classrooms, 39696
teachers houses, 3057 head teachers offi ces, 3932 staffrooms, and 4700 libraries. The average
Classroom pupil ratio is 1:116 while the average Teacher-pupil ratio is 1:81. Teaching and
learning materials are also said to be inadequate, (Government of Malawi, 2009).
MoEST/UNICEF (2008) report rates of absenteeism averaging 30% in the third term of the
2008 school year and repetition rates of 20% are the highest in the SADC region. High dropout
rates result in completion rates of 32% per cohort which means that 68% do not fi nish primary
schooling. This low completion rate means that even with a high enrolment rate of 140% GER,
Malawi can never reach universal primary education which entails completing the eight year
primary cycle. According to SACMEQ studies, Malawi’s mean reading score of 429 and a mean
mathematics score of 433 were the lowest in the region where the regional mean was 500 for
reading (Chimombo, Kunje, Chimuzu, & Mchikoma, 2005). These statistics indicate a low
quality of education.
The Government of Malawi embarked on a series of efforts to deal with the challenges
brought by the introduction of free primary education. For instance, they recruited 22,000 extra
teachers, provided teaching and learning materials, introduced a distance mode of training
teachers to reduce pupil teacher ratios and are still constructing schools and classrooms. As
one way of helping address the teaching and learning resource challenges facing the education
system in Malawi, with support from the World Bank initiated a programme to directly support
schools fi nancially in 2006. The programme was referred to as the Direct Support to Schools
(DSS). Initially a limited number of schools benefi tted for the purpose of purchasing teaching
and learning materials (Government of Malawi, 2006).