Education is the key that opens many doors and challenges the world, as well as people. As a key, education equips individuals and communities with the knowledge to be able to individually and collectively move out of poverty and build economically empowered lives, that have the potential to impact the trajectory their country. As such, in some of the world’s poorest countries, educational and skills training projects that will go to build a generation of empowered citizens, that can find their place in society and stand on their own two feet, remain critical. Malawi as a country is such a case.

According to the World Bank, despite decades of development efforts and significant foreign aid, Malawi’s weak and volatile economic growth performance has persisted. This persisting economic stagnation has been driven by weak governance institutions, which contribute to Malawi’s poor development performance, including in its educational institutions. The poor quality of education services, which result in poor learning outcomes and a growing knowledge and skills gap poses a great challenge to Malawi.

As the sixth poorest country in the world, Malawi necessitates a greater level of engagement in as far as improving its knowledge economy through educational investments in young people, including women and girls. There is a critical need in Malawi for educational projects that would go to ensure that there is a continued investment in building the capacity of young people. The key to meeting this capacity would be to adopt cost-effective and equitable strategies in improving the infrastructure of learning institutions, in the provision and delivery of learning materials and school supplies, teaching materials, teacher training, educational infrastructure, skills training and opportunities for knowledge transfer.

Located in the city of Blantyre, Malawi, Chichiri Primary School is hailed as the best primary public school in the commercial capital of Malawi. Serving a community of 1510 students (838 girls and 672 boys) between the ages of 6-13, Chichiri Primary School houses some of the brightest young minds in the country.

The infrastructure of the school is extremely poor. Classrooms have no electricity, the ceilings are either falling apart or do not exist, floors have gaping holes, windows are completely shattered, walls have not been cleaned or painted in decades, doors to the classrooms do not exist, the desks in the classrooms are either broken or there no desks and students have to learn from the floor. Moreover, bathroom facilities are not at all functional, there is no library at the school and no playground exists for the student body.

The challenge with Chichiri Primary School, like most schools in the country, is beyond aesthetic, and touches on the lack of accessibility to the most basic, foundational and fundamental resources that define any educational institution and the learning experience of its students. The school administration discusses how for every 200 students in a grade, they receive from the government just 4 books (per subject) for all those learners. Meaning, in a classroom setting of 50 students, they have 1 book for 50 students to share. Furthermore, because of insufficient number of desks, students in standards 2-4 learn from the floor. Additionally, for the 1320 students in the school, they only have 3 functional bathrooms, 2 for the girls and 1 for the boys.

The lack of these basic resources impedes the learning experience of the students, and the value that they mentally place on their education, and the value or lack thereof that is the outcome of their lives. As is evidenced in the below pictures, taken during our initial visit in July 2019, there is a lot of work to be done.