This interview-based qualitative study is concerned with the recruitment of secondary teachers in Malawi. This study shows a range of perspectives for pursuing a teacher training course: failure to follow a desired career, springboard to other careers, to upgrade, and teaching out of vocation. It shows that trainee teachers held a range of images…

This article is mainly concerned with the capability of trainee teachers to implement learner-centred practice at one of the teacher education institutions in Malawi. The notion of learner-centred education has assumed a positive policy position for teaching and learning in both primary and secondary sectors not only in Malawi, but also in the…

Steven Klees's criticism of Thobani's application of neoclassical economics to funding education by increasing tuition fees is based in part on misunderstanding or misrepresentation of arguments. The neoclassical framework can readily incorporate exogenous constraints; such constraints are political realities that must be reckoned with rather than…

Although the teaching of English at Junior Certificate level in Malawi secondary schools has only recently been introduced, some problems have been created by the introduction of the prescribed textbook, "A New Introduction to English Literature." This report opens with a critical review of the textbook, citing certain irrelevancies in…

Mateen Thobani's proposal to fund public education in Malawi through increased tuition fees applies inappropriate analytical techniques and fails to address a complex set of political, social, cultural, and economic issues. Policy formulation should stress a basis for dialog instead of pretending neoclassical economic analyses can provide answers.…

A partial equilibrium framework (user charges/government subsidy) analyzes optimal user charges for social services. The framework is applied to Malawi's education sector to formulate policy recommendations for solving problems of high student-teacher ratios and drop-out rates. Malawi's school user fees were increased in 1982 based on this…