Malawi Muslims Pioneer Early Child Education

Muslim organizations in the southern African country of Malawi are making pioneering early child education and communal child care through free pre-schools in rural and poverty infested areas, where such educational facilities were non-existent.

"We are targeting areas where children are likely to be denied access to early education," Sheikh Jafar Khalid, senior education inspector at the Al Barakah Charity Trust in Blantyre, told IslamOnline.net.

Generally, there are no government run pre-schools in the country. Mostly, these institutions are run privately or by faith organizations.

A survey by IOL correspondent shows that Islamic organizations are the first to penetrate into most of the remotest parts and the densely populated poor urban locations of Malawi.

The schools are for children between the ages of 3 and 6.

They are offered food hand-outs to help them enhance their health status, a major requisite to a healthy growth and development.

Qudrat Issah, a teacher at a nursery school run by the Bilal Trust in the district of Chiradzulu, said the pre-schools are helping to iron out differences that emerge as a result of social standing.

"We are pooling together children from varied backgrounds thereby bringing a genuine sense of brotherhood among the children," she told IOL.

"Ascribed or attained status is of no essence in our schools. As a result, the younger children are endowed with confidence which may help them excel in other aspects later in life."

She further emphasized that the schools were not discriminatory on religious grounds in rendering its services.

Islam is the second largest religion in Malawi after Christianity.

Official statistics suggest they constitute 12 percent of the 12 million population but the Muslim Mother body Muslim Association of Malawi say they are over 36 percent.

Vulnerability

The pre-schools are helping to address some of the problems faced by vulnerable children, mostly orphans and children from poverty-stricken families.

"We believe that children in poverty stricken areas are not properly introduced to education thereby increasing their risk of going on the leeway or at worse, risk dying of preventable conditions such as malnutrition," said Sheikh Khalid.

"We want to socialize the children and mould their characters into acceptable, morally, spiritually and health wise."

Government records indicate that nutrition indicators have remained largely unchanged since 1990, where one out of five children is underweight and half of all the children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

UNICEF Representative to Malawi Aida Girma said most of the nearly 26,000 children who die everyday worldwide, mostly in developing countries, lack access to essential health services and under nutrition.

"In 2006, 49 percent of all deaths of children occurred in sub-saharan Africa despite the fact that less than a quarter of all world’s children live there."

HIV/AIDS also remain a major challenge, but social workers think pre-schools can be used as a starting point to identify affected and infected children for relevant attention.

"Statistics show that about 30,000 are infected with the HIV during birth annually. And about half a million have been orphaned so these pre-schools need to be supported and commended for their efforts," Peter Mgwira, a sociologist in Blantyre, told IOL.

By socializing the children and teaching them religious values, the schools prepare them to avoid stigma and discrimination of those infected by the HIV, he added.

Welcomed

Sheikh Khalid said they also want to ensure availability of Muslim-friendly education for younger children.

He believes the spread of such schools across the country was likely to safeguard the identity of the younger Muslims.

"A child’s character is formed right away at the beginning of school. We therefore deemed it necessary to introduce the younger Muslims to the idea character of a genuine Muslim."

Hamis Bwanaisa, a widower whose children attend a pre-school being run by the Bilal Trust, is all praise of the newly introduced child education and communal care system.

"We can now concentrate on our work in the fields while our children are learning," he told IOL.

"At least we are proud to see very young children reciting numbers and the alphabet, in our days it was unheard of or at least a preserve for a privileged few."

Bwanaisa also said, as a widower and a poor farmer with a very limited income, he is being offered great assistance in teaching and feeding the children.

"I wouldn’t be as effective as the teachers in teaching the children as well as feeding them. It’s indeed a blessing."