Malawi Govt Revamps Secondary School Bursary for Girls

• Govt to target only Utra-poor girls from all constituencies and names of beneficiaries to be verified
• Global fund is ready to revamp the project

Hon Kaliati

Secondary School Bursary for girls to revamp says Malawi Government. 

The Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (GEWE) bursary will be one way of promoting girl child secondary school education and ending early marriages.

Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Honorable Patricia Kaliati confirmed that plans are underway and probably in September this year, the programme will rollout.

She said government wants to invigorate efforts to keep girls at school and estimates that roughly 80 girls from utra-poor families per constituency will benefit from project.

Currently Malawi girls from poor families face number of challenges in their education, as such; most school dropout statistics shows more girls leave school at each level of education and right away from primary school.

But one of the common hindrances to their secondary school studies is school fees, if they can’t afford then end up in marriage.

In an effort to keep more girls at school and finish their studies, Malawi Government is taking further step in girl child education by revamping school bursary to all girls from utra-poor families.

According to Kaliati, Malawi Government has partnered with Global Fund to revamp a Gender Equality and Women Empowerment GEWE Bursary. However, she did not indicate the amount of money and period to which the programme will last once it kicks off.

She said plan to restore the project is underway after Global Fund Chief Executive pledged the commitment at the recent meeting with Malawi Government in South Africa.

“We met with Global Fund Chief Executive and he has promised that they are going to revamp the programme and will start paying bursaries for school fees for utra-poor and this is what we are looking forward to be doing” said Kaliati

Kaliati said GEWE Bursary which stopped some years ago, helped a lot of secondary school girls to finish their studies.

The Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare Minister observed that such assistance to girls is the right direction to supplement number of government efforts in ending early marriages and school dropouts among girls.

She said the GEWE bursary will greatly support Malawian girls from utra-poor families who struggle in their daily life to access to secondary education.

Hon Kaliati has assured that the existing structures will be used identify the deserving girls from each constituency across the country 

“It is the same as we used to do in the past where we asked members of parliament to submit to social welfare names of those who are struggling to get school fees.” She said

Social Welfare, child protection, will verify the identified beneficiaries she said; “What we are looking for is utra-poor” she emphasized “We will therefore empower social welfare to go back to constituencies to assess whether the names are indeed for the utra-poor” said Kaliati