Steve Sharra's blog

On the surface, it would seem paradoxical that while the rest of the world is today celebrating the United Nations' International Day of Peace, the air in Malawi is thick with fear, anxiety and a premonition for violence. Last evening in Lilongwe, the capital, hundreds of people were out shopping into the night, creating long check-out lines in shops that normally close early, and are usually never crowded. There was absolutely no parking space left at People's in downtown Old Town. Bread had sold out in most shops, and bakeries had no fresh stocks.  read more »

Wednesday July 20^th found me at Katoto Teacher Development Centre (TDC), less than a kilometer away from Katoto Freedom Park, ground zero for Mzuzu demonstrations. We had a teacher professional development workshop with 20 educators from Mzuzu City and Mzimba North. Hardly had we started the day when we heard the chants and songs. It was tantalizing.

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With one of the lowest university enrollments in Africa, the debate on who gets access to higher education in Malawi is an incendiary affair. The debate has erupted once again with the announcement of the 2010 intake for the University of Malawi. Largely missing from the debate, however, is any discussion of the role of the university in Malawi's teacher education system, the foundation for the education apparatus.  read more »

Until I started knocking on people's office doors to ask about what was being done to celebrate this year's International Literacy Day in Malawi, September 8^th, I hadn't thought of how differently various people might interpret the concept "literacy". Picking up the phone to tell a director of a ministry department about what I had come for, one secretary didn't bat an eyelid to add "adult" to the word. It didn't matter that I repeated the phrase "International Literacy Day" several times.  read more »