Free primary education was introduced to Malawi in 1994, and it led to an increase in enrolment of one million pupils. The present contribution gathers case studies of 10 schools which sought information on the general conditions of communities and schools as well as on enrolment, resources, staffing, absenteeism etc. The results highlight the difficulties of implementing Education for All (EFA). Generally speaking, schools have been poorly supplied by the state. Effectively, many pupils have been marshaled into schools not properly equipped in terms of material and human resources. As a result, EFA in Malawi has been undermined by a persistently large number of pupils who drop out before attaining permanent literacy. Yet providing quality education is more than just a question of resources. From the points of view of parents and pupils, quality education requires relevance to local needs; adaptability to local conditions; and flexibility in addressing cultural obstacles. Overall, as is shown here, it appears that increased access to schooling has been achieved at the expense of the quality of education offered. Zusammenfassung -QUANTITÄ T IM UNTERSCHIED ZU QUALITÄ T IN DER ERZIEHUNG: FALLSTUDIEN IN MALAWI -Die kostenlose Grundschulbildung wurde im Jahre 1994 in Malawi eingefu¨hrt und hatte den Zuwachs in der Schu¨lerzahl von einer Million Schu¨ler zur Folge. Der vorliegende Beitrag versammelt Fallstudien von zehn Schulen, in welchen Informationen u¨ber die allgemeinen Bedingungen der Gemeinden und Schulen ebenso wie u¨ber die Schu¨lerzahl, Ausstattung, Personalversorgung, Fernbleiben vom Unterricht usw. erfragt wurden. Die Ergebnisse betonen die Schwierigkeit, Bildung fu¨r alle (Education for All / EFA) zu verwirklichen. Allgemein gesprochen wurden die Schulen vom Staat schlecht ausgestattet. Letztendlich wurden viele Schu¨ler an Schulen geleitet, die nicht u¨ber ein ausreichendes Maß an materieller sowie personeller Ausstattung verfu¨gten. Als ein Ergebnis wurde die Bildung fu¨r alle (EFA) in Malawi durch eine anhaltend hohe Anzahl von Schu¨lern untergraben, welche die Schule verlassen, bevor sie dauerhafte Lese-und Schreibfa¨-higkeit erlangt haben. Dennoch ist die Versorgung mit gehaltvoller Bildung mehr als lediglich eine Frage der Ausstattung. Aus den Perspektiven von Eltern und Schu¨lern erfordert diese Bildung einen Bezug auf o¨rtliche Bedu¨rfnisse, Anpassungsfa¨higkeit an o¨rtliche Bedingungen und Flexibilita¨t im Ansprechen kultureller Hindernisse. Insgesamt scheint es, wie hier gezeigt wird, dass der angestiegene Zugang zur Schulbildung auf Kosten der Qualita¨t der angebotenen Bildung erreicht worden ist.Re´sume´-QUANTITÉ CONTRE QUALITÉ DANS L'É DUCATION : É TUDES DE CAS AU MALAWI -L'e´ducation primaire gratuite fut introduite au Malawi en 1994 et conduisit a`une augmentation de l'immatriculation d'un million d'e´le`ves. La contribution pre´sente rassemble les e´tudes de cas de 10 e´coles qui recherche`rent des informations sur les conditions ge´ne´rales des communaute´s et des e´coles aussi bien que su...

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The study was concerned with the range of public and private provision of secondary education and how it is configured in terms of key dimensions of participation, staffing, curriculum, management and costs. It sought to explore how private schools have been developing to meet rapidly growing demand for secondary education of different types in Malawi, and to develop policy-relevant insights based on evidence using illustrative case studies. The evidence showed that private schools are playing a pivotal role in supplementing government efforts in secondary school provisioning. However, lack of control and regulatory mechanisms has meant that the quality of the education offered in both Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSSs) and private schools is very low. The development of secondary schooling policy in Malawi revolves around the striking of proper balances in the quality of education provided by CDSSs and the lower-end private schools. The tug of war in the contribution towards increased secondary school access seems to be between the CDSSs and the private schools and the extent of contribution by the private sector will be determined by what policies are put in place by the government to improve the CDSSs. There is need to establish some regulatory mechanisms so that access to private school is within the limits of parental affordability, otherwise private schools may not be the answer to problems of secondary education in poor Malawi.

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There are severe geographical disparities in pupil-teacher ratios (PTR) across Malawi, with most teachers concentrated near commercial centers and in rural schools with better amenities. Most of the variation in PTR is concentrated in small sub-district areas, suggesting a central role for micro-geographic factors in teacher distribution. Employing administrative data from several government sources, regression analysis reveals that school-level factors identified by teachers as desirable are closely associated with PTR, including access to roads, electricity, and water, and distance to the nearest trading center, suggesting a central role for teachers' interests in PTR variation. Political economy network mapping reveals that teachers leverage informal networks and political patronage to resist placement in remote schools, while administrative officials are unable to stand up to these formal and informal pressures, in part because of a lack of reliable databases and objective criteria for the allocation of teachers. This study curates a systematic database of the physical placement of all teachers in Malawi and links it with data on school facilities and geo-spatial coordinates of commercial centers. The study develops a consistent and objective measure of school remoteness, which can be applied to develop policies to create rules for equitable deployments and targeting of incentives. Growing awareness of disparities in PTRs among district education officials is already showing promising improvements in targeting of new teachers. Simulation results of planned policy applications show significant potential impacts of fiscally-neutral approaches to targeted deployments of new cohorts, as well as retention of teachers through data-calibrated incentives.