Malawi is a land-locked country in southeast Africa with a largely rural population of about 17 million people.

 

School-age Population by Education Level1

2,760,332

 

1,594,473

Secondary

 

Tertiary

 

 

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in Secondary Education
for the school year ending 20181

39.9%

 

40.6%

Female

 

Male

 

 

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in Tertiary Education
for the school year ending 20111

0.6%

 

1%

Female

 

Male

 

 

Percentage of female teachers in 1

22.9%

 

25.6%

Secondary (2018)

 

Tertiary (2011)

 

 

1. UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Centre, retrieved in March 2020

 

Literacy rate (2010)1

51.3%

 

72.1%

Adult (15+) literacy rate
Female

 

Adult (15+) literacy rate
Male

 

 

Economic Activity (2010)1

76%

 

64%

Adult (15+) economic activity
Female

 

Adult (15+) economic activity
Male

 

 

Political Decision Making (2014)1

22%

Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament

 

 

Life expectancy (2012)1

60

 

58

Female

 

Male

 

 

1. COL gender country profile April 2015 

 

0.1 39
Fixed-telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1 Mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1

 

 

  
0.1 27.2
Fixed-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1 Mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1

 

 

  
6.3 13.8
Households with a computer (%)1 Individuals using the internet (%)1

 

 

1. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT Eye Country profile, retrieved in March 2020

Highlights

COL’S work in Malawi is primarily in the areas of higher education, open/innovative schooling, teacher education and technology-enabled learning.

Higher Education

  • COL organised an ODL policy formulation workshop for the University of Malawi at which the policy was developed; it has been approved by the university.

Learn more about Higher Education.

Open/Innovative Schooling

  • In 2017, COL conducted a workshop for 35 senior staff from open schools in the southern region of Malawi on the management of open schools. COL also provided funding for a stakeholder workshop to discuss a draft policy for ODL for Malawi.
  • COL contracted NotesMaster — a freely accessible eLearning network for OER — to support staff training and content development in Malawi, Mozambique and Seychelles. Fourteen staff members were involved in the training and 12 subjects were developed as OER. COL’s Senior Advisor for Open Schooling visited Malawi to discuss open and innovative schooling, meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the Malawi College of Distance Education and two open schools.

Learn more about Open/Innovative Schooling.

Teacher Education

  • COL supported teacher educators from the University of Malawi to attend a five-day training workshop on information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning, at the Singapore National Institute of Education in May 2016. The training supported teacher educators in integrating ICT into their programmes as a key strategy to improve quality in education.

Learn more about Teacher Education. 

Technology-Enabled Learning

Learn more about Technology-Enabled Learning.

Partners

Partnerships are fundamental to COL’s work. Strategic partnerships allow COL to broaden its reach and engage at global, regional and national levels, while implementation partners support COL’s work in communities and institutions across Commonwealth Member States. Partners include multilateral organisations, regional bodies, national governments, government agencies, foundations, civil society organisations, public and private (not-for-profit) institutions and the private sector.

COL's partners in Malawi include: 

  • Centre for Research and Development Initiative  
  • Malawi College of Distance Education
  • Ministry of Education
  • University of Malawi