Education Authorities in Balaka District have decried the growing cases of school dropout rates in the M’manga zone, among other things, due to cultural norms and fishing activities in the nearby Shire River.
This was revealed on Thursday when the district celebrated the Day of the African Child, where officials were challenged to find solutions to child protection.
The district’s principal education advisor, Baxter Chakwera, says, for example, last year, at Chimbumbu primary school, only 15 learners managed to sit for Primary School Certificate Living Certificate Examinations, although the results were not satisfactory.
“We are saddened to learn of those things and as an office, we are working hard with our partners to resolve them,” said Chakwera.
As a solution, the district education office with support from the Centre for Alternatives for Victimized Women and Children (CAVWOC) Family Planning Association of Malawi (Fpam) has intensified the goal back to school campaign, to reverse the status and ease some of the challenges that learners face in the district in as far as access to quality education is concerned.
Chakwera emphasized that all teachers found to be absconding from work shall be suspended and disciplined.
“As a council, we are geared up to make sure that teachers are doing their work according to their condition of service and we shall suspend all who abscond from work,” warned Chakwera.
In her remarks, District Social Welfare Officer Nelia Kumalele expressed worry over the trend of learners who are forced to go fishing by their wards, hence pledging to intensify monitoring visits so that parents are responsible for the education of their wards.
“With support from our partner CAVWOC and the district education office, we have agreed to form a task force comprised of parents and traditional leaders to discourage children from involving themselves in fishing activities, but instead encourage them to focus on academic pursuit,” Kumalele said.
In his remarks, CAVWOC project officer Lightwell Nyirenda called on parents and guardians to desist from preventing children from attaining education, saying this is a violation of the right to education.
He further challenged traditional leaders and other community structure leaders to remain vigilant in ensuring that community-set by-laws are in force all the time.
Since 2019, CAVWOC, through the ‘Her Future Her Choice’ project, has enrolled back to school about 1,350 children, supported with school bursaries and education materials as incentives.
CAVWOC conducted the go back to school campaign with support from the Global Affairs Canada-funded project, ‘Her Future Her Choice.’
Balaka district celebrated its Day of the African Child under the theme “Education for all children in Africa:the time is now.”
