UK gives Malawi £11.9m of educational buildings

17 May 18

The UK has given Malawi £11.9m worth of educational buildings to improve primary and secondary schools.

This is in addition to the £11m that the Department for International Development has already invested over the past five years to improve learning and school infrastructure in over 320 primary and secondary schools in Malawi.

Interim DfID country director Chris Austin said: “Malawi has made great strides in improving accessing to education over the past 20 years.

“However, school construction has not kept pace with the overwhelming demand for education.”

The aid includes more than 158 classrooms, 52 teacher houses powered by solar energy, 21 administration blocks, 312 latrines and 46 urinals.

The UK also gave six digital learning centres in 28 of the most remote and disadvantaged primary schools.

The access to primary education has dramatically increased since the country introduced free primary education in 1994.

Almost all children in Malawi enter the first year of primary school, with a net intake of 97% for boys and 98% for girls

But school infrastructure is not keeping up with the pace of students enrolling and the average student classroom ration in Malawi is 115 students per classroom.

Chief director at the Malawi Ministry of Education Thokozile Banda said: “Good and purposeful infrastructure will go a long way in bringing children to school and more importantly will entice them to stay in school, especially the girl child.

“The ministry will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that all schools across the country have necessary infrastructure and other teaching and learning materials so that the quality of teaching and learning is improved.”

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