Search results

Since the 1970s, Malawi has been a host to asylum seekers fleeing from liberation and civil wars in Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and the Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo (Makhema, 2009). As a signatory to international legal instruments governing refugees and asylum seekers, Malawi, whose constitution advocates for education rights for all, is obligated to host the refugees and provide for their needs such as pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher education, health, and security.

In this chapter, the authors discuss the history of refugee flows into Malawi and refugee education policy within the national education policies in Malawi. In particular, the authors argue that refugees are part of Malawi’s social and demographic reality and their education needs and rights should be factored into the country’s higher education policy and annual national budgets. The authors further make proposals for extending equitable higher education access to accommodate refugee applicants.

The authors conclude by recommending that, in order for Malawi to live by its commitments to serve all humanity without segregation, it should reserve a quota for refugees in public universities, or at least welcoming refugee applicants on local fees terms.

When questioning the relationship between media, development, and democracy, especially in the ill-defined “Global South,” it’s important to go beyond the commonly held meta-narratives that frame these concepts as common sense. In a quest to investigate alternative characterizations of these terms, this chapter uses Ghanaian political economist Lord Mawuko-Yevugah’s (2014) theoretical framework of “developmentality” to explain how development has been used as an ideological instrument to promote the Western liberal media model in the “Global South.” Using a case study of Malawi, which is heavily dependent on foreign aid from the same countries who have defined and promoted this liberal media model aboard, raises important questions about a media model that is characterized by high objectivity and political neutrality on one side, but subjects countries to high levels of competition and free market principles on the other. By outlining the temporal sequence of events that have unfolded since the arrival of missionary media in the 1800s, the presence of international donors and the rise in non-governmental organizations, this chapter reveals how certain ideologies and practices have been legitimized through development to preserve the unequal balance of power between the “Global South” and their former colonial powers.

Purpose − This study illustrates how poor deployment and inefficient management contribute to poor usage of the Malawian school system's teacher resources.Methodology − The author uses data from Malawi's Ministry of Education Science and Technology's Department of Teacher Education and Development and the Education Management Information System to examine the supply of and demand for teachers. The data illustrate the relationships between teacher assignment and the need for teachers at the district, school, and classroom levels.Findings − Teacher assignment policies and practices in Malawi result in class sizes in the first three years of primary school that are much larger than optimal. Additionally, the prevailing shortage of teachers is about 25% worse than necessary because of inefficiencies in teacher deployment. For example, teacher shortages and surpluses often exist in the same districts.Research limitations − This study was limited by the poor quality of data maintained by the Malawian Ministry of Education and the teacher training colleges. While better data would elucidate and improve teacher deployment, existing data should more purposefully target assignment of teachers to schools with the greatest staffing need.Practical implications − Policy solutions identified include requiring minimum teaching workloads and clearer defining criteria for assignment of teachers to schools and grade levels.Value − By demonstrating the wide variations in student–teacher ratios at the district, school, and grade levels in Malawi, this study provides insight into ways in which prevailing policy and practice may compromise both efficiency and quality at each level.

Technology-facilitated violence and abuse including image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) is a phenomenon affecting women and girls around the world. Abusers misuse technology to attack victims and threaten their safety, privacy, and dignity. This abuse is gendered and a form of domestic and sexual violence. In this article, the authors compare criminal law approaches to tackling IBSA in Scotland and Malawi. We critically analyze the legislative landscape in both countries, with a view to assessing the potential for victims to seek and obtain redress for IBSA. We assess the role criminal law has to play in each jurisdiction while acknowledging the limits of criminal law alone in terms of providing redress.

To determine the factors that motivate rural households to supply ganyu labor and to estimate its impact on food security.

Data from the 2010/2011 Malawi household survey were used. A probit model to evaluate the determinants of ganyu labor supply and a propensity score-matching estimator to assess its impact on food security were used.

Less educated males are more likely to supply ganyu labor. Ganyu labor supply increases with household size, while it decreases with the level of crop farming and size of land owned. Results from the average treatment effect indicate a positive and significant impact of ganyu labor participation on the number of meals consumed per day.

Ganyu labor participants in Malawi have better access to food as a result of cash income from ganyu. Government support mechanisms such as minimum wage regulations should consider the welfare of ganyu labor participants.

Malawi's FPE policy is grounded in the history of governance, education, Christianity, and international aid in Malawi. It also is centered in and draws from the global EFA movement.

Since 2008, the Global North universities and the rural district of Chilanga, Kasungu in Malawi, have endeavored to create a dialogic, inclusive, and reciprocal knowledge-transfer project. Numerous years of consultation with community members resulted in the creation of Transformative Praxis: Malawi, a project dedicated to bettering human conditions in one of the most impoverished areas of the world. Through participatory action research (PAR), the Malawian community strongly indicated the need to foster critical thinking, creativity, and social entrepreneurship in the areas of Education, Health, and Development. Although local women were prominent in all stakeholder meetings, a growing suspicion emerged that the inclusive intent of our research-based work was actually supporting existing male-oriented power structures, which exist despite ongoing assurances of the active participation of women in decision-making, and the purported matrilineal societal nature of Malawi. Through a progressive series of critical incidents connected to literature on PAR and women in impoverished communities, this chapter chronicles the manner in which local Chilanga women unexpectedly and unconventionally solidified their participation and authentic leadership in a Global North and South initiative based in Malawi.

Malawi is a nation with a population estimated at 13.1 million (Government of Malawi, 2008). It was ranked at number 166 out of 177 countries in the 2006 Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Program. The population is predominantly rural (83 percent), and the economy is highly dependent on agriculture, mainly smallholder farming and fishing. The per capita gross domestic product in 2006 was $160, down from $210 in 2001, and the annual national budget is approximately $1.3 billion (for 2007/08).

By bringing together aspects of sustainable forest management, population health, and local livelihoods, the purpose of this study was to characterize how household dependence on forest resources changes through three phases: the period before HIV became a problem in the household, the period during HIV-related morbidity, and after AIDS-related mortality.

Sixty semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of unaffected and HIV/AIDS-affected households in four case study districts in Malawi.

This study demonstrates that the relationship between HIV/AIDS and dependence on specific forest resources appears to correspond closely with the stage of the disease. Firewood and water were consistently ranked as being one of the three most important resources, regardless of HIV-affectedness. During the morbidity phase, respondents reported their need for medicinal plants increased substantially, along with other resources. The importance of timber increased significantly after HIV-related mortality.

Interview respondents themselves suggested key interventions that would assist households in the HIV/AIDS-mortality phase, in particular, to obtain the forest resources they require. These interventions could address the impacts of HIV/AIDS on the sustainability of important resources, compensate for a decreased availability of household labor, and foster greater access to these resources for vulnerable households in the four study sites.

In spite of the fact that forest resources can play a crucial role in enabling a household to control and adapt to the disease, research on the environmental dimensions of HIV/AIDS remains limited. This chapter helps to address this knowledge gap, suggests practical, innovative interventions that could alleviate some of the disease burden on rural Malawian households, and offers insight into potential areas of further inquiry in this research domain.

Inclusive practices are supported and increasingly being implemented in Malawi. Transition to inclusion requires partnerships in which parents, educators, policymakers, and community leaders come together to build an understanding of disability which values inclusion and promotes the use of innovative, contextualized strategies to facilitate inclusive perspectives and practices. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how one agency, the Parents of Disabled Children Association of Malawi (PODCAM), is working with parents, educators, and community members to build more inclusive schools and communities for students with disability.