The Civil Society Education Union (CSEC) has expressed deep concern over Malawi’s continued failure to allocate at least 20% of the national budget to education, in accordance with the framework of Dakar’s actions. This chronic lack of funding has warned that it has crippled all education subsectors and hampered the country’s ability to provide quality education.
At the engagement meeting with Lilongwe’s MPs, CSEC Board Chairman Dr. Limbani Nsapato urged lawmakers to promote increased education budgets and cooperate with international commitments.
“The education sector continues to go well below the recommended 20%, and critical programs are being severely underfunded,” Nsapato said. “Some subsectors operate on budgets of less than 50% of what they need, making it nearly impossible to achieve national education goals.”
In the proposed 2025/2026 national budget, the government allocated Mk1.2 trillion for education. This is 16% of the total budget and has not achieved its Dakar target of Mk 500 billion.
Seek alternative sources of funding
To bridge this funding gap, CSEC proposed several domestic resource mobilization strategies, including:
Introduction to education collection
Take advantage of the contributions of the diaspora
Eliminates unnecessary tax exemptions for domestic and multinational corporations that are currently emitting public revenue.
“These tax credits reduce the amount of funds that should be invested in key areas such as special needs education, educational technology, vocational training and early childhood development,” NSAPATO emphasized.
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Legislators pledge to act
Brainax Kaisi, chairman of the Congressional Education Board, has assured stakeholders that MPS will lobby the education and finance ministries to increase sector funding.
However, Kaisi also raised concerns about how allotted funds are being used.
“We want to make the most of our resources for our intended purposes. Even if we have limited funding, efficiency and accountability are important,” he said.
The engagement meeting attended by civil society organizations and government representatives was jointly held by Oxfam Malawi, Sitesaver, ActionAid Malawi, Planmalawi, Gaio, Fawena and other CSEC partners.
