166 • Abolishing School Fees in Africa
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Shifting from an inspection-based system to one based on teacher support and development (the post of primary education adviser was established to replace school inspectors; primary schools were grouped into 315 zones, each under the supervision of a primary education adviser) Increasing budgetary allocation to the education sector with priority for primary education, which received the largest share of the education recurrent budget.
THE PLANNING PROCESS FOR FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION In Malawi it is widely accepted that the main drivers of the FPE policy were politicians (all the stakeholders interviewed from both central and lower levels of the government indicated that FPE was on the political agenda). As Avenstrup, Liang, and Nellemann (2004) observe for Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, and Uganda, “the adoption of universal free primary education was triggered by political demand rather than by rational planning processes.” FPE was high on the agenda of the main political parties that contested the first multiparty election in 1994. Both the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), whose government implemented the phased abolition of school fees, and the United Democratic Front (UDF) used FPE as a campaign strategy to win the election. Both parties’ manifestos included the introduction of FPE. While the MCP manifesto proposed a phased approach for FPE, UDF was silent on the mode of implementation (MCP 1993; UDF 1993). Upon winning the election, the UDF immediately fulfilled its electoral pledge, declared the introduction of FPE in May 1994, and announced that implementation would start in September of the same year with the beginning of the new school year. Thus, the government had exactly four months to plan the implementation of universal primary education. To expedite the implementation of FPE, a number of activities were undertaken (see table 5.1). Within the ministry, systems had to be developed to respond to the decree. In this regard, the Ministry of Education, the main implementing agency of the policy, created a task force headed by the chief planning officer to oversee and coordinate the planning and implementation of FPE. More important, that officer was charged with the task of determining the resource requirements and planning for resource mobilization. At a higher level, a ministerial task force was formed to coordinate activities of key ministries that would be involved in the implementation, such as the Ministries of Education and Finance and the Office of the President and the Cabinet. One of the first activities of this task force was to convene a National Policy Symposium a month after FPE was declared. At the symposium, a