Civil Society Wrestle with Child Labour through Quality Education

The Civil Society Organisations involved in the promotion of quality primary education say they have made a significant impact towards the elimination of child labour in the country, despite many challenges on achieving universal education for all

Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) Coordinator, Julita Nsanjama, says her initiative, which supports innovative programmes in the promotion of free and quality education, has been building capacity for civil society organisations in advocacy in achieving both the Education For All (AFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The EFA goals were set in April 2000 at a summit in Dakar, Senegal, at which 185 governments committed to provide Education for All by the year 2015. Whereas the MDGs are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives, which over 150 Heads of State from around the world agreed on at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 in New York. For each goal one or more targets have been set, most for 2015, using 1990 as a benchmark.

CEF has contributed towards achieving the EFA goals by, among other things, sponsoring the Global Action Week (GAW), one of several events organised by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) with the intention of mobilising public opinion to exert pressure on governments and intergovernmental agencies to provide free, quality education for all.

“We have, for instance, been engaging the civil society in the budget monitoring exercise, which is being implemented by the Civil Society Coalition on Quality Basic Education (ASCQBE), and also financially supporting this year’s Week of Action (19-25 April) where we spent more than 3 million Kwacha,” she said.

Nsanjama said the Week of Action, or GAW, was successful in bringing about increased awareness and action on issues of quality education in Malawi, and that the budget monitoring exercise will complement it by ensuring that the government, civil society and local communities, prioritise the educational needs and rights of poor people by strengthening the capacity and voice of Parents and Teachers Associations (PTAs) and emerging civil society networks on education in all the districts.

The Association for Elimination of Child Labour (AECL), one of the active member of the CSCQBE that is participating in the budget monitoring exercise is one of the civil society organisations that is making substantial contribution towards the elimination of child labour through quality education.

AECL has been running a school project in Nkhotakota dubbed the “Child Labour Elimination Tadwe School Project,” which was launched in March 2003, and officially opened on 19 January 2004 with an aim of combating child labour by providing primary education to the communities around the school.

Surrounded by a number of estate farms, Tadwe Junior Primary School has four classes (standard 1-4), and 165 pupils were registered in standard 1 alone at the on-set. AECL Project Coordinator, Joseph Kankhwangwa, said the project is one of the most feasible best practices in the fight against child labour in Malawi because of the successes it had already achieved so far.

“We have made a big impact already. We have been successful in promoting school attendance in the area surrounding the school. We have also noticed that the estate landlords have now started changing their attitude towards the issues of child labour and the need to send children, particularly the tenants’ children, to school after sensitising them,” he said.

The project has been funded for the initial period of two years by the Scandinavian Tobacco Company though the Eliminate Child Labour In Tobacco Foundation (ECLT) as their funding partner

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