Review of the Planning and Implementation of Free Primary Education in Malawi • 181
recruitment of untrained teachers, the deployment of teachers to schools was unsatisfactory as the remotest schools faced chronic teacher shortages. School personnel noted that teachers and schools did not have the capacity to deal with the FPE reform and could not manage the large numbers of pupils in class; as a result teachers lost interest in teaching. Stakeholders, particularly those at the school level, also felt that pupil behavior changed after FPE because of misconceptions about democracy and basic human rights. In particular, teachers, head teachers, and members of SMCs/PTAs who were interviewed all claimed that pupil behavior had changed and that most pupils lacked discipline as a result of these misconceptions. They did not take school seriously since they no longer paid fees. Parents too were reported to have lost interest in school; they did not feel obliged to monitor their children’s progress, as schooling was free. During focus group discussions with SMCs/PTAs, it was claimed that in the pre-FPE era, teachers and head teachers followed up on pupil attendance so absenteeism was low. Parents too made sure that their children attended school regularly since they were paying fees. It is alleged that after FPE, pupil absenteeism increased, and parents and teachers were less concerned about regular attendance. Misconceptions about the meaning of free primary education have been reported in the literature: pupils and parents interpret FPE to mean that they are free to decide when to attend school, resulting in high rates of absenteeism and erratic patterns of attendance (Kadzamira and Chibwana 2000). All stakeholders interviewed at the school level felt that poor school quality had a disastrous impact on pupil achievement. Primary education advisers, head teachers, teachers, and SMC/PTA members said that performance and achievement levels were very poor as a result of the poor quality of schooling and the use of untrained teachers, among other factors. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ascertain whether stakeholders saw a deterioration in pupil achievement following FPE because of the absence of reliable achievement measures in the pre-FPE era. However, studies conducted on achievement after FPE have documented very low levels of achievement among Malawian primary school pupils, which validates the observations made by parents. The 1998 Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) study, which assessed standard 6 reading skills, found that less than 25 percent of the pupils had reached the minimum levels of mastery and less than 1 percent had attained the desired levels of mastery (Milner et al. 2001). Similarly the Gender and Primary Schooling (GAPS) Survey of the same year found the literacy levels among standard 3 pupils to be very low; more than 50 percent of the pupils assessed were not able to read and