{"id":697,"date":"2014-10-10T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2014\/10\/10\/malawi-cecom-speaks-out-ahead-of\/"},"modified":"2016-05-03T09:40:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T09:40:55","slug":"malawi-cecom-speaks-out-ahead-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2014\/10\/10\/malawi-cecom-speaks-out-ahead-of\/","title":{"rendered":"MALAWI: CECOM speaks out ahead of the International Day of the Girl Child"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Steven Ndhlovu <\/i>
\nECM National Education<\/i>
\n Policy officer<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

\nAs Malawi
\njoins the rest of the world in commemorating the International Day of the Girl
\nChild which falls on Saturday, 11th  October, the Catholic Education Commission in
\nMalawi (CECOM) an arm of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) calls on all
\nstakeholders to work towards improving the quality and access to education in
\nthe country.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn a
\nstatement released by the Commission and was shared with the media, the
\nnational educational policy officer for ECM, Steven Ndhlovu said through the
\nstatement that the education sector in Malawi is facing a number of challenges
\nhence the call to action by all stakeholders as the day of girl child is commemorated.
\nMr. Ndhlovu challenged all to think about the Girl Child’s Education in
\nparticular.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHe also
\nindicates in the statement that Child marriages are one of the main barriers to
\neducation for young girls in Malawi. He said, on average, half of the
\npopulation of girls in the whole country is married by their 18th birthday
\nand nearly a quarter are married by the age of 15.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWhen girls
\nmarry at a young age, it often means that they are taken out of school and
\ndenied chances of education and a better future,\u201d Ndhlovu said adding that during
\nthe period between 2010 and 2013, more than 27,000 girls in Malawi dropped out
\nof primary schools because of marriage.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nstatement however urges the faith-based communities and traditional leaders to join
\nhands in educating communities about the advantages of delaying the age of
\nmarriage and supporting the government to increase the minimum age of marriage
\nfrom 15 to 18 years.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAccording to
\nNdhlovu, CECOM is working tirelessly to ensure that a national action plan to
\ncombat the consequences of child marriage and secure every young girl\u2019s right
\nto education is implemented.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cMalawi is
\nthe country with the 7th highest prevalence rate of child marriage in the
\nworld. Our girls are being unfairly denied their right to a future and we must
\ntake action,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAmong other
\nchallenges noted in the statement include the enrolment rate which is currently
\nat 97.5 percent primary net enrolment, school completion rated at 51 percent
\nsurvival to last grade primary, child labour at 26 percent of children in child
\nlabour and teachers being at 74\/1 pupil\/teacher ratio.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThere are
\nabout 293,000 primary school-age children in Malawi who are not going to
\nschool, a number of which according to Ndhlovu \u201cmust be reversed\u201d. On current
\ntrends, Malawi will fall well short of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on
\nuniversal primary education by the end of 2015.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSource: By Prince Henderson, ECM
\nCommunications Officer<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven Ndhlovu  ECM National Education  Policy officer As Malawi joins the rest of the world…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2849,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/2849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}