By Chisomo Sumani
In a significant stride towards enhancing science education in Malawi Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) has graduated 745 students who in a separate field a number 43 graduands now professional teachers were sponsored by EQUALS with the hope of helping the teaching of science education in remote areas there by promote the performance of education particularly in science in the country.
In a goal to enhance the quality of secondary education, the EQUALS project embarked on an ambitious mission to upgrade the qualifications of in-service teachers through the University Certificate of Education (UCE) program in 2022, aiming to support at least 800 underqualified teachers in mathematics and science by equipping them with essential teaching methodologies.
Government, in addition to the regular pre-service training programs offered at the university level introduced the nine-month UCE program for Bachelor of Science graduates, a program designed to prepare mathematics and science graduates for effective teaching roles in secondary schools.
“The education system is suffering a lot in terms of performance in community day secondary schools in the rural areas in particular and we want to change that.
“The people we trained under UCE are the teachers that have been teaching sciences in community day secondary schools but had other qualifications aside from education,” Dr. Matthews Mkandawire coordinator for EQUALS project at Luanar said.
In her remarks, Minister of Education, Madalitso Kambauwa Wirima said: “This is very good, it was not just about agriculture but also people responsible for human capital development were graduating, for whatever we are talking about is coming from education.”
“We cannot speak of education if we do not have a teacher at the center to educate the masses,” she added.
“I am just very happy that through our projects in the ministry of education we can also contribute in that respect graduands who are teachers and actually sponsored by ministry of education through the EQUALS program,” Wirima said.
She also said that EQUALS project sent teachers to upgrade, focusing on 2063 developmental goals saying where there is a pillar of agriculture there is also that which makes it possible, it being education which is inevitable with the presence of teachers upgrading their skills.
“We can have a school but without teachers school cannot take place,” she emphasized.
One of the graduates Dorothy Tiwonge Luwe, currently teaching at St. Marys Girls Secondary School in karonga expressed her gratitude to EQUALS program.
“EQUALS will change my life especially my profession, I will impact knowledge to my fully best because of the knowledge which I have been impacted here at LUANAR.
“I would like to thank EQUALS for what they have done to us on behalf of my friends, I have been teaching with only bachelor of science in forestry without an education certificate for almost 13 years but with this am very grateful and I really thank EQUALS,” she said.
The first phase of UCE training targeted 172 science and mathematics teachers, with 155 registering, (90% of the target).
MZUNI, LUANAR and UNIMA are the three Teacher Training Institutions (TTIs) offering UCE training. To increase the number of teachers trained in UCE, additional teachers will be enrolled for cohort 2. In addition, those who did not report in the first phase (cohort 1) will be followed up and trained.
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