Malawi’s Secondary School Education System and Intergenerational Poverty

Abstract

Abstract Education systems can reduce intergenerational poverty transmission if they promote equitable access to education for all children. This chapter demonstrates that the selection of learners into poor-quality Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSS) in Malawi is influenced by household poverty status. Children from poor households have a 46% higher probability of being at a CDSS than children from non-poor households. Household poverty status is not an important factor at initial selection into a CDSS, but poverty retains poor children at a CDSS, while non-poor children are taken out. We conclude that poverty selects children from poor families into poor-quality secondary schools in Malawi, thereby promoting intergenerational poverty transmission through low human capital-building. This situation can be reversed by providing bursaries to students from low-income families who get selected to conventional government secondary schools, and improving quality of public primary schools and CDSSs through provision of adequate teaching and learning materials, including teachers.