Politicians Lack Political Will Towards Education

By: Eric Nantchengwa

Politicians have irked education experts for failing to execute constructive structures that can develop and improve education standards in the country.

After a 31 year rule, under the founder and father of this country Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda the country have not seen much of the infrastructure development and serious strategies in the education sector to the extent that pupils in some areas are still learning under the trees.

Civil Society Education Coalition Executive Director Benedicto Kondowe told The Malawi Star that political leaderships in the country have had no political will in improving the Education system.

”The focus of these politicians is based on where votes are coming from disregarding the needs of the people in many sectors, education in particular,” he said.

He said currently the education system is had hit by limited infrastructure, low teacher motivation, high school drop-out rate among others which is lowering the standard of education. This is something that could have been a thing of a past if politicians were committed to develop our education system.

Kondowe emphasized that even the current leadership is behaving as a band wagon of ignorant people and not constituted with academicians let alone the Head of State himself because they lack passion in developing the education sector.

Nineteen thousand and forty unrecruited teachers and teachers receiving low salaries which is happening under the President’s watch, according to kondowe translates to lack of political will and commitment in improving education standards.

Recently Lecturers at The Polytechnic, a constituent college of The University of Malawi-UNIMA embarked on a strike demanding their pay increase which they were promised by government but was not effected, a thing the expert described as poor dialogue skills on the part of government.

Such indefinite closure brings economic implications on the tax payers’ money, exert unnecessary pressure on parents since they cannot plan for such eventualities and it distorts the school calendar and this vice is uncalled for in the education sector.