Malawi first Monica Chakwera spoke on the need to have improved basic education and early childhood development in Malawi, saying the sector is currently facing a lot of challenges. The first lady made the remarks in New York when she met with the Global Partnership for Education delegation yesterday.
Madame Chakwera said basic education in Malawi is facing a lot of challenges including climate change which has sometimes destroyed school infrastructure leading to increased learner dropout.
“When climate change catastrophes hit, the ones who suffer the most 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.”
Madame Chakwera then outlined the need to build climate change resilient infrastructure for both Primary, Secondary, and Community Day Secondary Schools with the aim 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.
We need our schools to be energized with electricity and connected with the internet at all times to enable our system to continue with learning during climate change-related crisis.” Added Madame Chakwera.
Further, Madame Chakwera pointed out that the 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 a 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 the 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 told the meeting.
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)
