All Companies, all Malawians, all NGOs must help in educating Malawi’s future workers
By Janet Karim
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6
“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” – Asian Proverb
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. –Derek Bok, Ann Landers, or Char Meyers
As an educator, I often pay close and particular attention to government policies. It was thus very exciting news that was released by Malawi leader Arthur Peter Mutharika, upon his re-election to the high seat: that his government was going to introduce free secondary school education in Malawi. I was instantly caused to think about other Malawi leaders who made similar impacts to the education system of our country. These are former first President Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda who introduced free university education to every student. This was complete with a $6.00 stipend. The second was Muluzi who introduced free primary school education, living true to the tradition of “m’mela m’poyamba (sic – growth starts early). Mutharika’s free secondary school finishes the picture of the attempts to ease the burden of educating the children of Malawi – the future leaders of the country.
All three paths cost money. Lots of money, but they are all worth the struggle.
Kamuzu’s free tertiary education built in three decades, a cadre of highly educated professional people that filled middle and high managerial positions in companies in and outside Malawi. More importantly, the country has had four vice presidents and one president that are former graduates of free university education.
When the era of free university education came to an end, two friends of mine (Margaret Mbilizi, Thandikile Chisala and I formed Magzeentha Promotions to raise money and establish a scholarship fund for university students. The NGO raised over $5,000.00 that went into the Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship Fund. More importantly, because I was in the media, I used any space I could garner in the papers I worked for, to raise awareness of the need to keep standards of university education at the same levels experienced in the 30 years. Such activism led to companies and NGOs to start making contributions to the University of Malawi. Such social responsibility by local companies allowed them to pay for the education of their future employees.
President Muluzi’s introduction of free primary school education, giving credence to an old proverb, was cheaper than funding university students; however, truckloads of students filled to register for entry. This created the need for more calls to companies for social responsibility and to contribute; as educationists scrambled to ensure that the quality and standards of education was maintained in a landscape of growing freedoms.
As a media practitioner, calls were made or stories highlighted on the education sector. The story of William Kamkwamba, Malawi’s pride of a young lad who from his humble beginnings created a windmill that produced electricity for his village. Another landmark concern raised was of a young 9-year old kwasa-kwasa dancer, who despite the enormous money her dancing skills was being raised, had to be stopped due to her age. These caused Malawians to pay attention to the raising of their children.
Enter President Peter Mutharika’s dance on the educational platform. The policy offers great new hope to Malawian youth, many of whom are living in humble circumstances. According to the World Bank, 58% of Malawians face multidimensional poverty with deprivations in health, education, food security, climate change and others. The Bank, the cost of schooling is the main reason secondary students dropout of school. (Government of the Republic of Malawi, 2019. With a population of 20.93 million. 80% of the population works in agriculture, Malawi is considered a low-income country with 76.31% of people living below the international poverty line of $3.00 per day, and 71% living in extreme poverty. A severe drought in 2024 led to poor harvests and higher food prices. Food insecurity has been increasing in the past few years. In the 2025 school year, approximately 80,876 students passed the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) exams, with a total of 194,584 students who wrote the exams. This is a significant number of secondary school graduates that are entering the employment or informal sectors. (Quoted from Fact Sheet 2025 and Ip-ed.org on 11.24.2025).
The country’s formal education has primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Free secondary education puts a bright shining light in Malawi education tunnel. This is my second call for Malawians everywhere and companies operating in Malawi to help President Mutharika’s vision of educating all Malawians to secondary level; help him turn the grimy picture of our education system to one of glimmer and hope for all Malawians. The call is for every economically-abled Malawian lining inside or outside the country to contribute either a one-off annual contribution or a monthly contribution into the Malawi Secondary School Fund. This will help the country attain its picture-perfect education scenery.
Additionally, and also very important, the call is made to Malawi government officials in charge of receiving or handling the contributions to this new venture the country is embarking, to PLEASE tighten your belts, close your pockets and handbags, and definitely wash your gluey hands so that Malawi continues its recovery journey. Your sterling, excellent, and authentic diligence and corrupt-free manner, will permit Malawi school children to get the education they need and must have so they can play their future roles of leadership, equipped with knowledge and wisdom.
Please donate to educating Malawi’s secondary school students.
Knowledge is less expensive than ignorance.
