Confirmation that Our Educational Policy Is Effective

“When you see it in black and white that our work is effective you cannot be anything but pleased,” says Stella Samúelsdóttir, ICEIDA’s Project Manager for social projects in Malawi. It is confirmed in a new report from the district authorities in Mangochi that the educational policy that ICEIDA and the heads of the municipality in Monkey Bay have upheld has resulted in better education, increased school attendance and more teachers than in other parts of the district.

“Our partners say that these good results in schools which ICEIDA has built come because we hand over the schools fully equipped,” says Stella. “With fully equipped schools I mean that we not only raise the school housing with classrooms but also teachers’ living quarters which attracts teachers and we make sure that sanitary facilities are satisfactory which is a crucial factor concerning girls’ school attendance. It is very common that girls do not attend schools where sanitary facilities are unacceptable, few toilets and long lines at all times,” says Stella.

Manochi District at the southern tip of Lake Malawi is divided into seventeen areas which contain 241 grammar schools and 43 secondary grammar schools. The population of the district is little less than 800 thousand. The report from the district’s education authorities includes both an evaluation of the current situation and the goals in education until the year 2012. Students in grammar schools in Malawi increased by half in 2004 when the Malawian Government decided that elementary education would be free. Since then the government has, in collaboration with many development agencies and international organisations, tried to respond to this sudden increase in students by adding classrooms, building new schools, adding more teachers and improving the teachers’ education in the country.

ICEIDA has vigorously addressed these challenges with the authorities and built new schools and improved others in collaboration with the authorities in Monkey Bay. Seven schools have been raised for Icelandic funds in this area.