MALAWI: Schools Closure Solution Exposes Gaps In E-learning Infrastructural Development

By Luke Bisani

For the past years, schools in Malawi have been shut down due to demonstration by students or sit-ins by staff members, which led to forcing of people in authorities to have an option of closure while waiting for talks on their disparities that have arisen.

Public universities in the country have a pile of newspapers to achieve with such incidents of sending students back to their respective homes, as compared to those students pursuing their different courses from private Universities.

Secondary schools have very few cases of closing down, except for those students who express their dismay with poor diet by opting for breaking of school property which leads to the suspension of their learning for a while.

With reports of the deadly respiratory disease caused by Coronavirus (COVID-19), which has scared everyone including powerful nations since the genesis of the world, Malawi grabbed quickly the prevention boot as the virus fast spreads across Africa, including to countries that Malawi shares boarders with.

It is now two weeks since the President of Malawi , Prof. Peter Mutharika, announced that students must be in their homes as a preventive measure from contracting the virus as scientists suggest that staying at a distance from one another prevents the virus from spreading to the masses.

The closure has affected schools’ calendars for respective institutions of education and posed a threat to the planning of all activities associated with learning. For Instance, the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) and Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) national examinations that have fixed months that candidates are supposed to sit for them need to be rescheduled.

As we accept this sad reality of closure of schools while fighting the spreading of COVID-19, alternatives on how students can still be in class while they are at home amid this crisis, e-learning could be the answer to worries that Coronavirus has brought on education in Malawi and other countries.

The Catholic University of Malawi Registrar, Francis NKhoma is of the view that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Malawi needed to have an e-learning mode of teaching students for global education ranking.

He added that separation of the teachers and students during the teaching and learning processes and the use of rich forms of multimedia to unite them in the learning process, eliminate the fears of spreading the virus at the same tick of the clock ensuring that students are continuing with their studies.

“The calendar is not interrupted and it provides access to learning materials to students who have been disturbed with unprepared closure. So, that process of studying continues by every student who was supposed to be in school” said Nkhoma.

Concurring with Nkhoma, education activist Benedicto Kondowe suggests that e-learning could have been a milestone achievement on Malawi’s education years back as most countries have moved a step further to integrate such mode of teaching students. However, Kondowe was quick to question the practicality of e-learning in Malawi due to inadequate infrastructural development, system design and access to the internet that remains a problem to many citizens.

“The assumption will be that every space is accessible to the internet which is not the case and it will pose a huge challenge to those that are staying in typical rural areas which are not accessible to the internet. Again it will be problematic to those people that have access to the internet because of the status of our economy that challenges us,” said Kondowe.

He then urged the government to invest in the initiative of e-learning as a way of supporting Higher Education Institutions to roll out the mode and engaging with the private sector offering services that support e-learning.

Minister of Education, Science, and Technology, Dr. William Susuwele Banda disclosed that e-learning remains an optional teaching, amid COVID-19 pandemic. The Minister then disclosed plans of solving challenges that are likely to rock the mode.

“Soon, I will be meeting service providers in this country, including development partners who have offered themselves to step in and support the process, and other key stakeholders because these issues are to do with policies, some service providers say the internet is expensive because of tax that is charged on it,” said Susuwele Banda.

The Catholic University of Malawi is currently eying to have e-learning of teaching its students while waiting on the government to announce when it is safe for students to be in schools.

Through a survey, the University plans to get views on e-learning from its students and lecturers on the practicality of the model.

Students’ Union leader, Mark Nakoma said they are ready to participate in the survey as a way of helping the Catholic University of Malawi with better planning on e-learning. Nakoma then expressed challenges that likely to hit e-learning at the University to some students enrolled in science courses.

“Some courses demand physical interaction with lecturers, being in the laboratory and following steps that lecturers are giving in an experiment,” said Nakoma.

The leader of students at the Catholic University of Malawi added further that technical know-how of internet gadgets could be another shakeup in e-learning at the University.