MALAWI: DVV International partners CUNIMA on Adult Education

Luke Bisani

The DVV International has partnered with the Catholic University of Malawi (CUNIMA) on a first ever diploma program on adult education in the country.

Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at CUNIMA Loveness Imaan said the diploma in Adult Education Development which is the first of the kind in the country, will help in enhancing the capacity of the Adult Learning and Education (ALE) system in Malawi.

The 2015 Malawi literacy statistics showed that the country’s literacy rate is at 62.14% and revealed a big gap between males and female where whereby the male literacy rate 69.75 and females 55.2%.

“This programme is very important because those who will be trained in adult education will eventually train those people who will be giving the training to the rural masses. In the past, they never had proper training. Now, we want to train the trainers so that they may go out in the communities to train other people so that the adult learning can be professionalized,” said Imaan.

Imaan added that the University has received support from DVV International, among them books that are to help in training the trainers on adult education in the country.

The Dean of Social Science further added that the University has advertised the program under its weekend modules and plans are under way to have the activity under its generic activities and introduce a Bachelor’s degree on adult education soon.

DVV International Regional Director for southern Africa Mr. David Harrington said the organization is committed to provide more support to the university so as to offer an opportunity to those working in the field of adult education to acquire the skills and requisite knowledge.

“As DVV International, we are committed to giving technical support to the program. Right now, we have plans to involve external experts who can help to share more knowledge on adult education with the University and we have plans to provide equipment to be used by the University in teaching students that are to enrol for the programme,” said Harrington.

Adult education and development programme at CUNIMA complement the Malawi government’s National Adult Literacy Programme (NALP) through offering support to numerous programs offered by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to go beyond basic literacy acquisition and include broader community development issues such as health, agriculture, to list some.

The two-year diploma program on adult education will help to prepare adult education practitioners who will be able to function as an effective and autonomous adult education professional who can make strategic choices about facilitation, materials, assessment, and selection of programs.

Graduands will be challenged to apply extended skills around learner support and interaction with the local context and policy development.

CUNIMA is fast-growing private University in the country with over thirty-three programs from diploma, degree and Masters’ level.