Project Notice |
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| PNR | 263 |
| Project Name | Improving basic education |
| Project Detail | German development cooperation has been supporting the educational sector in Malawi since the 1990s. In spite of considerable progress already made, major challenges remain in order to reach regional and international standards. The system is very centralised, and education management has to cope with a shortage of human resources, skills and institutional capacity. Academic performance is not impressive for a number of reasons; there are too few teachers, the teachers are poorly qualified and the standard of classroom teaching leaves a lot to be desired. Not all children are enrolled in school and drop-out rates remain too high. The high number of students who have to repeat academic years also contributes to the inefficient use of funds by the education sector. In the coming years, Malawi will benefit from increased funding by its development partners, one of which is Germany. Objective Access to, quality and efficiency of basic education in Malawi are improved. Approach The project advises the Malawian government on drafting and, above all, on implementing its educational policy. Earlier phases focused on the development of curricula and teaching aids, as well as teacher training, both for formal and non-formal basic education and also for support in educational management, for example in monitoring. The current focal areas are as follows: Advising sectoral management: drafting essential documents for sectoral management and for ensuring the success of cooperation with other international donors (sector-wide approach — SWAp), support for committee work, donor harmonisation, sectoral planning and monitoring Decentralising the education system through capacity development for independent regional and local authorities to improve the planning, implementation and monitoring of district education plans and in order to dovetail them with other planning levels Teacher training and particularly system development with a view to clarifying who is responsible for teacher training, reducing resource problems and eliminating shortcomings in the coordination of different approaches to basic and in-service teacher training Support for the Ministry of Education and district administrations in the national dissemination of the successfully tested approach of providing a non-formal basic education for children who do not attend a formal school or who have dropped out of school with a view to bringing these children back into the formal system. The project includes the assignment of development advisors who offer management consultancy in teacher-training institutions as well as measures to improve teachers’ skills by introducing improved instruction methods. Since April 2011, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has been co-financing the improvement of teacher training. The project is being implemented jointly with KfW Entwicklungsbank. Results achieved so far The project, supported by the new curriculum and accompanying teacher training aids that were introduced in previous projects, has contributed to initial improvements in academic performance. Success rates of well over 90 per cent have been the norm in teacher training examinations in recent years. Providing a non-formal basic education for children without access to formal schooling has so far enabled several thousand children to obtain qualifications, allowing them to continue formal schooling. This success has resulted in the pilot project growing into a national project that has been included in national curricula. The groundwork for cooperation with other international donors has been completed and the instruments are in place; the relevant bodies took up regular work in July 2010. The project has successfully highlighted a number of issues. Monitoring reports on the education sector and annual work programmes are available and quality is steadily improving. Donor coordination has improved significantly, leading to cost savings by avoiding parallel structures and duplicate activities. GIZ’s advisory services have made a major contribution to the approval of Malawi’s application for funds from the Global Partnership for Education initiative (approved in March 2010). This not only means considerably more funding is available - the process of fulfilling the conditions for the application in itself has given a boost to reform. |
| Funded By | Deutsche Gesellschaft f?r Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) |
| Sector | Education & Training |
| Country | Ghana , Western Africa |
| Project Value | Plz Refer Document |
Contact Information |
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| Company Name | German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) |
| Address | Postfach 12 03 22, 53045 Bonn, Germany, Tel: +49 / 228 / 9 95 35-0, Fax: +49 / 228 / 9 95 35-35 00. |
| Web Site | http://www.bmz.de/ |
