CHIRADZULU, Malawi (AFP) - The 36-year-old from the central Chiradzulu region is far from alone in her sense of shame, with more than two out of every five people in Malawi unable to read or write.

And according to Charles Mkunga, deputy chief of a state-financed National Adult Literacy Centre, failure to reverse the situation will only lock the impoverished southeastern African nation into further poverty.

"Malawi is doomed as the country cannot develop with so many illiterate people," says Mkunga.

"With the new era of information technology, it is a must that we have a literate nation if we are to develop."

Official figures show that only 57.5 percent of the 12 million-strong population are classified as literate.

That lags the literacy rates in nearby countries, where some 80 percent of Zimbabweans can read and write, while Zambia and Tanzania are both above the 70 percent mark.
The bleak situation in Malawi is largely a result of faltering past literacy programmes and the educational system, which despite its expansion, sees 70 percent of pupils drop out of primary school.

Mkunga pinpoints a lack of political will to bankroll government projects designed to push literacy levels to higher levels as the main culprit.

State funding towards literacy programmes has "greatly diminished" in the past decade and now accounts for only three percent of the national budget, he told AFP.

"We have been unable to teach more than three million adults how to read and write in the past decade due to insufficient resources and funds," he said.

Limbani Nsapato, coordinator of a donor-funded non-government organisation which fights for increased education funding, agreed that the government had not placed a high enough priority on education.

Nsapato's Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education, which represents 67 NGOs in the education sector, has been urging the government to double the amount of money it spends on schooling.

"The current level of 13 percent is far off what is needed to reduce levels of illiteracy by 50 percent before 2015," Nsapato said.

"The government is not serious in making literacy a priority ... there is no political will," he said.

"About five million Malawian children and adults are illiterate. It is a dangerous situation which must be corrected speedily."

The ministry of women and child development, which spearheads literacy programmes, denied that there was a lack of political will.

"You cannot say, and it's not fair to say, there is no political will. It is the same government that has trained 10,000 literacy instructors spread throughout the country," ministry spokesman Cyrus Jeke said.

However the spokesman admitted that the government had a battle on its hands to persuade pupils to stay in school.

"The most disturbing trend is school drop-outs," he added.

Thirteen years have passed since the then president Bakili Muluzi introduced free primary schooling, which led to an immediate doubling of enrollment levels to 3.2 million pupils.

Most pupils however drop out before completing four years of primary school, which education experts say is the minimum time needed to acquire basic literacy.

Only around a quarter of pupils complete eight years of primary school, with many youngsters needed to become breadwinners long before the end of childhood.

Malawi is one of the world's poorest countries where 60 percent of the people live below the poverty line of one dollar a day and per capita gross domestic product is around 210 dollars (155 euros) per year.

"Seventy percent of pupils do not complete the primary school circle and drop out because of several factors, including poverty," said Nsapato.

He believes the only real solution is to make primary school compulsory for all ages.

"There should be legal provisions to make free primary school compulsory. It will be one strategy to improve literacy and the government will be compelled to spend more on education," Nsapato added.