By Cedric Nkungula
In a move that aimed at providing quality education to students, President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera will in few weeks’ time launch the construction of 10,000 classroom blocks nationwide.
Updating Malawians on the strides that are being made to improve education standards in the country during the opening of the 2024 / 2025 budget meeting at the fourth meeting in the 50th session of parliament on Friday 9th February 2024, President Chakwera explained that the project will be funded by World Bank under Malawi Education Reform Programme (MEREP).
“Two weeks from now, I will be launching the construction of about 10,000 classrooms nationwide with funding from the World Bank under the Malawi Education Reform Programme (MEREP),” he said.
Highlighting achievements in the education sector during the year, the president said his administration has recruited about 2,000 primary school teachers on permanent basis and 4,200 auxiliary teachers, and trained 7,304 Head and Deputy Head Teachers.
He added that government has distributed about 68,000 tablets to 498 primary schools and trained 689 officers and 2,600 teachers through the BEFIT Programme, because our kids deserve to be given digital literacy.
“We took over 66 Community Day Secondary Schools that we have been constructing in partnership with the US Government under the Secondary Education Expansion for Development (SEED) Project. We expanded 70 Day Secondary Schools under the Equity with Quality and Learning at Secondary (EQUALS) Project,” he said.
“We trained about 1,400 Secondary School Head and Deputy Head Teachers through the School Leadership programme, while also recruiting about 2,000 and promoting 380 Secondary School teachers.”
The Malawi leader reported that government has also increased the number of students accessing loans by 15.9 percent, reaching about 26,000 students.
And in the year ahead, said Chakwera, we will continue the construction of Mzuzu University Library and Auditorium whose progress is currently at 58 percent completion; we will complete construction of the University of Malawi Administration Complex whose progress is currently at 76 percent and we will continue the construction of Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) Administration Complex whose progress is at 43 percent.
“Next month, I will be commissioning a University Innovation Pod (UNIPoD) another facility for manufacturing innovative products at Malawi University of Business and Applied Science (MUBAS) whose construction is now complete with funding from UNDP,” he said.
