Africa-Press – Malawi. Despite the Ministry of Education releasing a circular that schools should collect Development Fund of not more than MK1000 per pupil, schools are still cashing in up to MK2,500 making poor families fail to send their children to school in the urban centres.
In the circular, the Ministry said collection of School Development Fund should match with the project being carried at the school and this should be in consultation with all the relevant stakeholders for the project to be in the interest of all.
However, it has been noted that schools have defied the circular taking it as useless as parents and guardians are still dipping hard in their pockets to pay development funds of MK2,500 per pupil in Lilongwe Urban schools and government has not condemned this malpractice.
What is puzzling many people is that besides development funds, schools receives School Improvement Grants (SIG) over MK1million but the impact on the ground is zero, head teachers and Management Committees are conniving to abuse the funds for own benefits.
Mr. Alfonso Limani, a retired school teacher, has pleaded with the education authorities to visit schools inviting all of its stakeholders to learn the impacts of School Development Funds and School Improvement Grants to the schools, challenging them that they will go back to office very angry.
Limani said it is very pathetic to see learners learning using a dilapidated portable chalkboard under a tree making one wonders the significance of the funds coming to the schools a clear indication that the funds are not meant for the benefit of schools but individuals pockets.
He said head teachers display fake details of the funds received at a school on the notice board saying teachers are aware of this development claiming that most teachers do not know the funds the school receives from government and development partners.
“Theft of school funds is the order of the day in schools by head teachers, management committees and a few teachers, organize a meeting with all the staff members to prove this right,” said Limani.
He recalled that the Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) tried at one time calling upon government to come swiftly in arresting and prosecuting head teachers and management committees abusing school funds but up to this day, nothing has happen.
Limani said because of government’s silence letting the funds being abused left and right at nobody’s care, school funds have proved to be lacking transparency and accountability and it is a way of self-enrichment by some individuals.
Since 2006 Government and development partners have been providing funds to supporting schools through Direct Support to Schools (DSS) which in 2010 changed its name to School Improvement Grant (SIG) but many schools across the country are in abstract poverty as if they are in 1964.
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