The neglected heart of educational development: primary teacher education strategy in Malawi

In an attempt to reach the targets set out at the Jomtien World Conference of Education for All, the government of Malawi introduced free primary education, increasing the pupil to teacher ratio significantly. In order to counter this, two teacher education initiatives using distance education methods were devised to increase the numbers of trained teachers. This paper examines the implementation of these two initiatives and compares them with other distance teacher education programmes. It then seeks to show that, in order to achieve qualitative as well as quantitative success, teachers and other community actors must be involved right from the planning stages and supported throughout the implementation of such programmes. The development from the first teacher education programme to the second would appear to show that the government of Malawi has learnt this lesson.