This is the first Education Key Facts Sheet in a series of Key Facts sheets that IFPRI produces based on the Integrated Household Surveys (IHS). The purpose of the series is to present data relevant to key policy issues on agriculture, food systems, and development topics in Malawi.
Highlights from this key facts sheet include:
- In 2019/20, 88 percent of primary school aged children were in primary school, while only 15 percent of secondary school aged children were in secondary school, either because they were in age-inappropriate classes or not attending school at all.
- Net enrollment rates in both secondary and primary have increased over the decade between 2010/11 and 2019/20.
- Most primary and secondary school students attend a public school.
- More than two-thirds of household members over 14 years of age have no official educational qualifications.
- Between 2010/11 and 2019/20 literacy rates for women increased by 11 percentage points, while for men they increased by 8 percentage points. These differential trends closed – but did not eliminate – an existing gender gap: in the last survey year female literacy rate was 70%, while male literacy rate was 83%.
- In 2019/20 the average annual out-of-pocket expenditure per child attending primary school was MWK 9,371. For secondary school that expense was over 10 times higher at MWK 95,742.
- 51 percent of out-of-pocket secondary school expenditures in 2019/20 went towards paying school fees.
- Lack of money for fees and uniforms is the main reason for dropping out of secondary school, while this is the second most important reason for dropping out of primary school, after lack of interest in school.
Read and download the full key facts sheet: Education here (PDF 587 KB)
Featured photo credits: MCooperman/IFPRI
