4. MALAWI: Fostering Improvements in Pupil Learning: a Community School Approach

AFRICA 4. MALAWI: Fostering Improvements in Pupil Learning: A ‘Community School’ Approach

(i) What did this approach aim to do? What were some of the key background features? In 1994 the Malawi Government introduced a ‘free primary education for all’ policy (FPE), as a result of which school enrolment rose from 1.9m to 3.2m (since stabilizing at around 2.8m). These impressive enrolment gains have served to exacerbate chronic difficulties within the system: key statistics can be expressed in terms of the number of pupils per qualified teacher, per desk, and per classroom, all of which have nearly doubled. Underlying these difficulties is the major problem of low internal efficiency, with irregular attendance and poor school quality contributing to very high drop-out and repetition rates, particularly in the first two standards, and low completion rates. The Primary Community Schools Program (PCoSP) is a Malawi Government Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture (MoESC) initiative. The program began in 1995 with the aim of developing and disseminating cost-effective and replicable approaches for the delivery of community-based primary education for all girls and boys in Malawi. It aimed to develop strong local partnerships in education by empowering communities to play a central role alongside government in providing, improving and managing education in primary schools.

(ii) What was the approach? From its inception, the program has had three strands: construction, community participation, and teacher and school development. By the end of the year 2000:

 97 schools (three in every district nationwide) will have been built or rehabilitated;

 the roll-out of a community involvement program will be complete;

 approximately 90% of schools will have completed the school development program.

The approach is premised on the principle that the school itself should be the focal point for the investment of time and resources; and that the schools need consistent, structured, external support, principally from Primary Education Advisers (PEAs), in order to foster a collegiate approach to teacher self-development and to devise, implement and monitor whole school development plans.

The program has developed an INSET package, which focuses on three levels: school management, school and teacher development, and improved classroom practice. The package focuses on a limited range of improvements, deliberately restricted to ensure their achievability, and on developing the support mechanisms necessary within the school to foster these improvements. The program has suggested a model of learning based on action, followed by reflection, leading to learning – ‘theory grounded in practice’.

The focus for the training package is on five key areas for school improvement which are each concerned with improving pupil learning. These five issues are addressed at each of the training courses and comprise:

 improving attendance;

 improving school organisation (i.e. class and teacher allocation), to support the learning needs of younger pupils;  promoting the continuing professional development of teachers;

 making classrooms more effective;

 improving lesson planning.

These five key issues are revisited during the three levels of courses, to allow for iterative learning both for the individual teacher and for the institution as a whole. Schools consider all the above key issues when drawing up their Whole-School Action Plans, and are required to involve all stakeholders in this process.

Costs: [no information available at this time]

(iii) How successful was the approach? How was this success determined? External reviews of the program have commented that many of the schools offer a good learning environment for pupils. In particular, improvements have taken place in pupils’ attendance, school organization and continuing professional development of teachers. A key factor in the project’s success has been the work of the five Community Liaison Officers (CLOs), who have the responsibility of developing community support for the schools, from site selection onwards, through the construction phase, school start-up and onwards into school development. An important element of work of the CLOs has been to act as ‘cross-cutting’ agents, bringing together staff from different Ministries, principally the Primary Education Advisers and the Community Development Assistants. This role was a new one in Malawi, and a challenge remaining for the rest of the life of the project is to embed their work within the District structures.

However, the project has not yet been able to evaluate the effect that enhancing teachers’ continuing professional development has on pupil learning. This will be addressed through action research in the final phase of the program: key staff at district level will generate pupil learning ‘milestones’ and teachers will be trained to assess individual pupils’ progress against these.

(iv) On the evidence available, how sustainable/able to go to scale is the approach? This issue is a challenging one. The government of Malawi has signaled its intention to continue to develop the concept and practice of community schooling. The challenge will be to link the school development strategies created by the program into a coherent national in-service system and to communicate the program’s understanding of community-based primary education to the whole of the national system.

The final phase of the program will accordingly design and implement an initiative to demonstrate to the Ministry how affordable, replicable, equitable and high quality community-based education can be delivered throughout an entire District. The design will include the development of decentralized MoESC structures and systems, and a comprehensive strategy for evaluation.

Reference:

Breakell, L. (2000) “Fostering improvements in pupil learning: a ‘community school’ approach (Malawi)” in Saunders, L. (Ed.) School Improvement Worldwide: Nine Case Studies from Six Countries. Manchester: British Council.