The crisis in public education in Malawi

This paper is based on a critical review of the literature of the quantity-quality tradeoff in the aftermath of the introduction of Free Primary Education in Malawi. It is over twenty years since Free Primary Education was introduced in Malawi and yet its goals remain elusive. The introductionof FPE education resulted in a high influx of new pupils into schools and pressure on existing resources. There have been some serious concernsabout the quality of primary and secondary schools including but not limited to overcrowding, poor teachers qualifications, insufficient teaching and learning materials, high–pupil teacher ratios and others. In this paper the authors examine the various implications of the introduction of FPE in primary and secondary schools,the dependency trap under which the country is glued, and propose some ideas to bring about change.