SJS RNE

Education

Last updated 20.11.2019 // Malawi was the first country to receive bilateral support to education following the Norwegian Parliament’s White Paper No. 25: Education for Development 2013/14. This White Paper serves to guide the approach of Norwegian development cooperation to education globally and bilaterally.

07. Mar 2017

Norwegian Prime Minister, Ms. Erna Solberg, launched the education portfolio during her visit to Malawi in July 2014. The Norwegian support to education in Malawi is long term and the portfolio is broad in order to address the different challenges and obstacles to achieve good quality education in Malawi.

The main goal for education in the bilateral cooperation with Malawi is to:

Contribute to ensure that the quality of education in schools and learning improves, that all children are able to complete primary education, that as many as possible, especially girls, continue to secondary education, ant that the education quality is raised and relevant to the labor market
Norwegian support to the education sector is aligned with and supports the national sector plan to achieve quality education for all
Promote synergies between multilateral and bilateral support to education in Malawi and follow up and report on global initiatives from a country perspective
Contribute to maximize the synergies between the various efforts and between education and health in particular, strengthen government's education system and ensure aid effectiveness
Prioritize vulnerable and marginalized groups' access to schooling and learning through inclusive education
Support the coordination work of development partner activities
Work with the government to improve the quality of comprehensive sexuality education
Improve the quality of vocational education and skills especially within the field of agriculture

In line with national and global policy, the Norwegian embassy supports programmes aiming to reach results by targeting:

Out-of-school children's access to education
Girls' access to and retention in basic education with increased transition to secondary education
Quality education that promotes learning made accessible for vulnerable groups, children with disabilities included
The promotion of the use of new technology that improve teaching and learning outcomes
Continuity of learning and safeguarding of schools in situations of crisis, through food security in particular
Continuity of learning and safeguarding of schools in situations of crisis, through food security measures in particular
The development of robust national education system that provides good quality education
Improved vocational education and training
Good quality, age appropriate, culturally sensitive and gender transformative comprehensive sexuality education
Teachers and the boosting of teaching skills and development of incentive schemes to recruit and support qualified teachers where the needs are greatest

The Embassy supports government’s implementation of the Malawi Education Sector Implementation Plan (ESIP II) having been extended to 2020. Grants are channeled through government, as well as the UN and civil society organizations.

Government Cooperation

The Norwegian Embassy supports the work of the government and the World Bank as Grant Agent in the joint effort in implementing the ESIP II.

Given the general aid environment in Malawi and uncertainty linked to fragilities in the public finance management system, any form of budget support has been discontinued since 2013. This includes the sector wide approach and the pooled funds to the education sector. In the interest of aid efficiency and in collaboration with a handful of other bilateral partners, Norway channels funds through the commonly agreed financing mechanism Education Services Joint Funds (ESJF), established in 2017. The Grant from Norway extends the support to the Malawi Global Partnership for Education (GPE) program; Malawi Education Sector Improvement Project (MESIP Extended) to additionally four districts and the larger part of the policy framework and capacity building at the school level and school leadership.

UN Agencies

One target area in the ESIP II is girls’ education. Malawian girls continue to face a myriad of interrelated challenges in attaining quality education. According to the Government of Malawi, about the same number of girls and boys are enrolled in the first five years of primary school, after which enrolment favors boys. Only about 55 percent of the girls above 15 years in Malawi are literate, compared to almost 70 percent of boys (UNESCO). Boys have a lower drop-out rate, and perform better than girls. They are also are more likely to embark on post-primary education. Quality education for both girls and boys is important in order to hasten development and break the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition, poor health, hunger and poverty. Ensuring the equal right to education for girls is an effective way to improve gender equality, but also to increase girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and stem the radical population growth of Malawi. The One UN approach “Joint Program on Girls’ Education” (JPGE) is a large-scale multi-sector initiative building on synergies between the education-, health- and agricultural sectors. The Embassy initiative aims to improve and expand education for girls in Malawi and in Phase II of the project, targeting a total of 169 primary schools in the three districts of Dedza, Mangochi and Salima through WFP, UNICEF and UNFPA. The program has a price tag equal to NOK 179,5 million and runs from 2017-2020.

Norway also supports UNICEF through the Quality Education Programme, which purpose is to support the implementation of ESIP II, with a focus on school improvement plans, decentralized learning material procurement, continued teacher training and strengthening of education statistics. The programme aims to ensure 50 percent of students attain proficiency in literacy and numeracy by standard 4, and improved quality of in-service and pre-service teacher training. The project shall also contribute to capacity building at sector level in the implementation of the MESIP Extended, with special focus on school infrastructure and strengthening the operations of the education sector joint fund.

In October 2019, the Embassy entered into a three year agreement with UNESCO on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) through the Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3) Programme. Working closely with, and implementation done by, the Malawian Government, the project aims to ensure that the children and young people of Malawi can benefit from comprehensive knowledge about sexuality and the human body, in order to empower them to make informerd decisions about their health and help them stay safe from harm and diseases. This agreement is in alignment with Norway's commitment to support the O3 programme globally as well. Through the CSE programme, adolescents and young people in Malawi will be empowered, educated, healthy and resilient, having the capacity to reach their full potential and contribute to the development of their communities, country and region. One of the main projected of the programme is the delivery of accurate, rights-based and good quality comprehensive sexuality education programmes that provide knowledge, values and skills essential for safer behaviours, reduces adolescent pregnancies, and gender equality. The programme also aims to ensure that school enviroments are safe and inclusive for all young people, including young people with disabilities.

Civil Society

Civil Society organizations play and important role in education advocacy and provision of education services as they can pilot and test innovative approaches for more efficient management and more effective learning.

Norway is collaborating with Save the Children Norway on Inclusive Education in Malawi. The Embassy had a direct agreement with Save the Children Norway on creating an inclusive learning environment for all children, with emphasis on children who are deprived from an education and from learning, due to disability, special learning needs or other types of marginalization such as poverty. The project is implemented by Save the Children Malawi. The content of the bilateral agreement is now included as part of the Norad framework agreement, running for five years from 2018. The grant management of the project will be done by Norad in Norway, but the Embassy will continue its technical follow up, policy discussions, dialogue with the government and results monitoring.

The effort aims to provide the same learning opportunities for all children, “Leaving No One Behind” cater for a safe and inclusive education. Primary school net enrolment in Malawi has increased since the adoption of the Free Primary Education policy in 1994. However, fragile systems with scarce resources and capacity have uncovered major shortages in the system. These have implications on the qualification of teachers, learning relevance of the curriculum and teaching and learning material, and the physical learning environment. As a result, learners do not acquire basic skills. Lack of access to education affects certain marginalized groups of children disproportionately. In Malawi, children living with disabilities seems to be the group that are the most left behind within the education sector. This is why the Embassy have the needs of this group as a priority in all our projects and also with this separate effort with Save the Children, focusing directly on these vulnerable children. Inclusive education is needed in Malawi, and corresponds to Norway's education development policy of granting marginalized children their right to education and an education that delivers on children's learning.

The Unlocking Talent: Learning through Technology in Malawi project aims to enhance early grade reading and maths for learners in Standard 1 and 2 in particular. The project is supported by the Embassy and implemented by Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in collaboration with “OneBillion”. The project introduces digital technology as a means of reaching out to more learners in a resource pour context. It is a pilot with a strong research component managed by the Nottingham University.

While the number of children enrolled in primary education has increased in Malawi, children and students in school are not receiving quality education. Youth literacy is higher than the regional average and persist at the unsatisfactory level of 73 percent (18-24 year olds). The education system is challenged in many ways with severe over-crowding in classrooms, lack of learning materials, inadequate infrastructure, and a shortage of trained teachers to cope with the increased number of students. Malawi’s teacher to student ratio is amongst the highest in the world, with an average of 1 to 80 students, and in many cases, 1 teacher to 250 students. Learners drop out or complete the education cycle without having acquired the basic skills, such as in functional reading and arithmetic.

Through digital equipment, Unlocking Talent offers a learning package through an individualized interactive learning app that teaches literacy and math in Chichewa and English. The school head master organizes groups of learners rotating to the learning center making sure that each child have a minimum amount of time every week interacting with the learning app. The learning center is equipped with iPads, a charging station, solar panel electricity and security installations to protect the equipment.

The project is a three-year pilot and targets nine education districts in Malawi; Karonga, Machinga, Dedza, Ntcheu, Blantyre, Thyolo, Lilongwe Rural East, Lilongwe Urban, and Salima with an envelope of NOK 29,8 million.