The role of donors and civil society organizations in the education sector of Malawi - Joseph Chimombo

When a new, democratically elected Malawian government made primary schooling free of fee payments in 1994, the numbers of children in school increased by almost one million. The implications of this policy change in terms of resource needs were obvious. The donor community provided support for free primary education in various forms. Based on work that analysed the involvement of civil society organizations in education through a structured questionnaire, the article points out that although the enormous challenge of the need for massive resources to the education sector has been energetically taken up by various stakeholders, the attainment of the various targets is nowhere near realization. The paper calls for diversity in the formulation of policies. Malawi needs to set minimum acceptable educational standards for the country and to identify the resources needed to achieve quality educational goals, otherwise the UPE and EFA goals will not be achieved.
From: Southern African Review of Education, Vol. 13 no. 2 (2007)