The Education System in Malawi
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have very little chance of getting literate. The consumption of student years by students dropping out before the end of the cycle entails a waste of public resources. Similarly, repetition creates extra charges for the system, as it costs two or more schooling years to validate only one year. The consumption of unproductive years of schooling following dropouts or repetition can lead to an inefficient use of already scare public resources. The IEC is defined as the ratio between the cumulative student years invested in a system with no student flow problems and the actual cumulative student years invested given the current pattern of dropout and grade repetition (for example, those additional years due to repetition and those useless years due to dropouts). An education system with no dropouts and no repetitions would have a coefficient of 100.7,8 Table 4.5: Internal Efficiency Coefficient in Primary and Secondary Schooling (1999/00–2006/07) 1999/00*
2006/07
39%
35%
Primary Internal efficiency coefficient Dropout related (w/o repetitions)
50%
49%
Repetition related (w/o dropouts)
80%
71%
Student-years required to produce one graduate
20.1
23
76%
66%
Secondary (lower and upper) Internal efficiency coefficient Dropout related (w/o repetitions)
81%
71%
Repetition related (w/o dropouts)
95%
94%
Student-years required to produce one graduate
5.2
6
Sources: *CSR 2004, EMIS 2006, 2007; HIS 2004 for repetition structure.
The internal efficiency coefficient at the primary level remains particularly low (35 percent in 2007). This implies that 65 percent of public resources are used for repeated years or for school years of students who are dropping out before completing the cycle. Indeed, the system requires 23 student years to produce one graduate instead of 8 years with a perfect efficiency. The situation has slightly worsened since 1999, when the IEC was 39 percent. An increase in repetition is mainly responsible for this degradation and the related rise in wasted resources. In 1999, repetition induced a 20 percent waste of resources (partial IEC of 80 percent); in 2007, the waste of resources was 29 percent (partial index of efficiency of 71 percent). Dropout also remains a major issue, inducing a 50 percent waste of resources. Indeed, in a system with no repetitions, the partial efficiency index (dropout related only) would be 49 percent. High dropout rates have the greatest adverse affect on the efficiency of the system. Internal efficiency at the secondary level is slightly better, with a coefficient of 66 percent in 2007, although the situation has significantly deteriorated over the period (the IEC was 76 percent in 1999). Thirty four percent of resources are currently used for repeated years or for school years of students who drop out before cycle completion. It takes six student years to produce a graduate instead of the four years theoretically needed. This is higher than in 1999/00, when 5.2 years were required to produce a