By Kondanani Chilimunthaka

Country’s First Lady, Madame Monica Chakwera has spoken highly of the need to have improved basic education and early childhood development in Malawi.

Madame Chakwera made the call on Sunday, September 18,2022 in New York, USA, when she met with the Global Partnership for Education delegation.

She said basic education in Malawi is facing a lot of challenges including climate change which have sometimes destroyed school infrastructure leading to increased learners dropout.

Said the first line, “When climate change catastrophes hit, the ones most hard hit are girls who fail to go to school and are asked to feed the families, fetching water and firewood from long distances. These entrench inequalities among learners between boys and girls from both urban and rural areas, hence the need to promote basic education for all.”

She then outlined the need to build climate change resilient infrastructure for both Primary, Secondary, and Community Day Secondary Schools with the sim of ensuring continued teaching and learning.

“I urge you to support us in areas of ICT for online and offline learning to ensure that learners are not missing out whenever they are at home,” added Madam Chakwera.

“We need our schools to be energized with electricity and connected with internet at all times to enable our system to continue with learning during climate change related crisis.”

Further, the first lady pointed out that Ministry of Education through her Shaping Our Future Foundation is working hard towards intensifying other strategies to improve technical and vocational skills in Malawi.

Taking her turn, Vice President for Global Partnership Education, Susan Liautaud hailed Malawi’s First Lady through Shaping Our Future Foundation for taking a leading role in championing girl child education in the country, adding that there is need to do more in order to encourage girls to go further with education despite the challenges they are facing.

“I am so inspired by what the First Lady Monica Chakwera is doing to improve education of girls in Malawi, hence the need to support her programs. Issues to do with girl-child education, gender based violence as well as early child marriages need to be addressed and government must prioritize the issues to ensure that girls remain in school.” Liautaud said.

Liautaud then revealed that her Global Partnership for Education will engage other partners to fully support the Shaping Our Future Foundation initiatives in improving basic education in Malawi.

Madam Chakwera is meeting various international organizations while in New York, United States of America where President Lazarus Chakwera has gone to participate in the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA)