Malawi Prisons demand qualified teachers in jail

Malawi Prisons is demanding qualified teachers in the country’s jails to teach prisoners preparing to sit for the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE).

Evans Phiri, spokesperson for prisons said this after 68 prisoners passed this year’s MSCE out of 102 who sat for the examination.

The prisoners did not do well though compared to the past years when one of them was selected to Chancellor College in Zomba. However he did not go to study at Chancellor College because prison officials said was lack of laws that could cut a prison sentence to allow an inmate study at college.

Phiri said the dismal performance in the examination can be reversed once the ministry of Education allocates full time qualified teachers in prisons.

“This is really a concern to us as this defeats the whole purpose of rehabilitating our prisons,” said Phiri.

Phiri said currently, prisoner volunteers teach fellow inmates although they might not be qualified secondary school teachers.

“We need a lot of volunteers to teach our prisoners so that they are rehabilitated,” he said.

Former ministry of education principal secretary Sam Safuli who served a prison sentence years back on abuse of public money charges, said he spent his time in jail teaching fellow inmates.

Phiri also said the prison also lack teaching and learning materials. This year most students who sat for MSCE did extremely well.