On Part-time Lesson Ban

Recently, government made a directive that there should no longer be part-time lessons in all public schools. It appears this is part of government’s process of reconstructing the education sector in Malawi. It started with the shutting down of all sub-standard secondary schools, mainly privately owned ones.

Government went further to ban summer term lessons in secondary schools and ruled that if at all summer lessons were to be held, then they should be free of charge. The Private Schools Association of Malawi (Prisam) expressed its concern over the directive, but it appears this is no time for any government’s directive to flop. To a larger extent, it seems we are living in an era where everything that government says is supposed to be adhered to even if it does not wholly appeal to the majority.

And now, some teachers and parents have expressed their misgivings over the ban on part-time lessons. In essence, on the part of government, the ban on summer terms and part-time lessons is aimed at avoiding putting at a disadvantage students who cannot afford to pay for the ‘extra’ lessons.

An official from the Ministry of Education intimated that the problem with these ‘extra’ lessons was that a student who misses them will not be able to recapture them because they would not be re-taught in the normal learning period.

But much as this is true, it does not imply that in the normal learning period, everything in the teaching syllabus will be covered, especially this academic year when the learning period has been lessened to such an extent that only the inclusion of some extra effort by both the teachers and the students can help redress the teaching/learning imbalance.

So, it is imperative to let those who can attend extra lessons do so without any restraint. It is true that everywhere in the world, there are both the rich and the poor, but it does not imply that because the poor cannot afford something, then the rich too, should not be allowed to get it. This kind of philosophy, to me, appears to be just opium of the masses which is only aimed at pleasing the economically-disadvantaged, while tramping over them at the same time.

There are those who could afford to pay for their children’s part-time school fees (after some struggles, though) but are encouraged not to do so because the playing field has been ‘levelled’.

Government should not just implement policies without proper consultation. There are many departments both in the public and private sectors that can assist in conducting relevant researches whose results government can use to implement policies.

It is no denying fact that part-time lessons have helped many pupils/students do well in their examinations and the ban categorically means that the performance of many pupils/students will dwindle.

Just like one teacher argued in The Daily Times of last Monday, some pupils take part-time lessons more seriously than they do normal-time lessons. Part-time lessons also make pupils concentrate on their education other than other distractive activities which can affect their lessons. After the normal lessons, instead of pupils going to entertainment centres, they are forced to attend part-time lessons and they subsequently have very little time to spend on something else other than education.

It is being unrealistic of government to demand that teachers who hold part-time lessons should not charge students/pupils any amount of money. How does government expect someone to teach for hours on end on a part-time basis and be satisfied with nothing? A teacher needs to be satisfied so that they can work diligently. In fact, this is the spirit of every working environment: diligence and efficiency comes from satisfied workers.

On the other hand, rehabilitating the education sector in Malawi is a welcome development considering the fact that in recent years, complaints have emanated from different quarters that education standards in Malawi are going down. But policies which negatively affect the rehabilitation process should be avoided.