Malawi

THE FAMILIAR Southern African story of early hunter-gatherer communities being disrupted by the introduction of iron-age Bantu from the north pertains equally to Malawi. The first major Bantu polity was the Maravi Empire, founded in the late 15th century by communities of ironworkers. The Amaravi (or Chewa as they were eventually called) attacked the stone-age people by using a system of pursuit and destruction that they later used in hunting unwanted predatory animals. Later, the Maravi Empire itself succumbed to two powerful groups that infiltrated the region. The first were the Angoni who during the Difaqane in the early 19th century had arrived from South Africa’s eastern seaboard where they had been dispersed by an expanding Zulu empire. The second were the Yao who came from northern Mozambique. There they had established partnerships with seafaring Arab traders. Two significant results of this contact were a tribal decision in 1870 to follow Islam, and the Yao use of firearms against both the Chewa and the Angoni...Read more.

Malawi’s system of education comprises eight years of primary, four years of secondary, and an average of four years of tertiary education (technical, vocational, teacher training and university education). Most children start formal education at primary school at the age of six, although learners up to 16 years old are accepted in standard one (Ministry of Education Sports and Culture, 2001). Technical and vocational training is offered in seven colleges by the Ministry of Education, and three aided grants (MoE response to draft country report).

Malawi has thirteen HE institutions, of which two are publicly funded.

Type of Higher Education Institutions	Number of Institutions
Publicly funded universities	2
Publicly funded polytechnics & specialized colleges	7
Publicly funded colleges, accredited universities or colleges	4
TOTAL	13

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Source: Malawi MoE questionnaire response

The Policy and Investment Framework (PIF) approach outlines government policy on education, the programmes that deserve the most attention, and, through the linked Mid-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), budgets for these programmes within the available financial resource package (Ministry of Education Sports and Culture, 2001). The Vision 2020: National Long Term Perspective Study has identified the main challenges facing Malawi’s education system. These are: improving access, quality and equity in primary, secondary, and tertiary education; strengthening the science, technical, vocational and commercial components of the school curriculum, improving special education; improving the performance of supporting educational institutions, and developing an effective and efficiently managed national education system. In view of this, Government will strengthen key aspects of the national educational system by focusing its attention on a number of strategies (Ministry of Education Sports and Culture, 2001).
 

Higher Education Legislation	Brief Description
No relevant legislation was found

List of Statutory Bodies in the Higher Education Sector

Statutory Bodies	Brief description
No information available

 

Public Expenditure on Education as a % of Gross National Income (GNI)	4.0%
% Education budget allocated to higher education	No data
Loan/Grant scheme in place	No data

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Source: SARUA (2008) – Pillay report

Key Indicators	Malawi
R&D Intensity [The ratio of Gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)]	Not available
ISI Output (Number of papers published in the 7500+ journals of the ISI Web of Science)	1990-1995: 424 1996-2001: 655 2002-2007: 922

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Source: SARUA (2008) – CREST Report