Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) has asked government to allocate 15 percent of Value Added Tax (VAT) to education to deal with funding gaps in the sector.
The organisation’s Program Manager Kisa Kumwenda said this at a National Civil Society Dialogue meeting which took place at Riverside Hotel in Lilongwe.
Kumwenda said increasing government funding in the education sector will improve education standards.
In the 2018/19 budget, the education sector was allocated K166 billion which experts said was not enough.
Kumwenda suggested that allocating some of the money collected through VAT to education will curb the problem of teaching and learning materials as well as lack of sanitation facilities among others in the country’s schools.
CSEC with funding from Swedish Development Partner has been implementing a four year project which started in 2015 which aims at reducing school dropouts in Dedza, Lilongwe and Ntchisi districts.
According to Kumwenda, through the help of the project, the organisation has managed to reduce school dropouts induced by early marriages in some of the areas.
“We have also found out that poverty and child labour are some of the factor leading to early school dropouts, many students are dropping out to work in different companies due to poverty,” he explained.
