More Nsima? No thank you!

Setting up a Children’s Centre was Vince’s idea. He had been working in the UK when the Sure-Start model had been disseminated nationally. He experienced firsthand how Sure Start had revolutionized support and provision for children and families in small communities, and contributed significantly to the development within these areas. To this day these centres remain key features in communities. The idea? They are to be a one stop-shop for all early year needs. Needless to say therefore, a multi- disciplinary and multi-professional set-up is necessary in order to improve the social, educational, and health outcomes of the children. Children Centres can even provide counselling and courses for parents with the view that this will indirectly benefit the child.  National reviews and audits have no doubt confirmed the success of Sure Start in England.

And this is the vision for MTCC- Mother Teresa Children Centre, to base it on an evidence based, tried and tested success story, the Sure Start model, right down to the training of all staff to Sure-Start standards, to the staff-child ratios in day care. An extremely tall order when taking into account the complete lack of infrastructure in child services in Malawi, which makes it so difficult to sustain a multi-professional set-up in the long run. Ideally a wide range of professionals would use the children centre as a base at frequent intervals to provide the various services. For instance prenatal and antenatal healthcare and advice by health visitors and midwives; advice and support on parenting; speech and language therapy; child protection officers and the list goes on. However, in a place like Malawi where the national number of nurses at one point was lower than the number of Malawian nurses between Liverpool and Manchester (the government down-graded the course so that graduates wouldn’t qualify for employment with the NHS in order to retain them in the country), you can appreciate the difficulty there is in maintaining consistent multi-agency provision.

How significant would something like MTCC be in a place like Malawi then? Well, when you consider that in terms of early year provisions in Malawi, it is of course only private, a luxury exclusive to the upper-middle class and with no official equivalent to Ofsted, even these private nurseries don’t come close to your average sure-start centres in the UK. Education is free for 6-14 year olds. The average number of students at a typical primary school varies from 4-5000, and often up to 7000, with approximately 60 teachers. You can do the Maths, how many students per teacher per classroom. Most children also have to pass selection exams to continue to the next academic year, your average student that reaches secondary school has to attempt about three times in order to continue. Drop-out rates are therefore high, and girls in particular start getting used more and more at home for domestic help, their numbers drop quite significantly.

I had never before fully appreciated how the British Education system fosters such a wide range of skills in children, that we take right through to adulthood, and take for granted, until I came here. I mean, we’re far from perfect, but when you consider the above ratios in Malawi, you’re left with an education system that can just about provide parrot fashion reiteration whilst you rock backwards and forwards with your 100 or so other peers in class, with a complete lack of opportunity to develop skills such as creativity, thinking outside the box, problem solving, curiosity....

And you have to wonder, how many of the current problems here are as a consequence of this. It seems to come across. There seem to be the same ongoing problems, and things come to a complete stand-still when anything goes wrong.

In light of this therefore, when you consider the staff to child ratios for 0-2 year olds at MTCC, which is 1-3, and 1-8 for 2-6 year olds, you then begin to appreciate the significance of this in the context of the current Malawian Education System. The volunteers at MTCC are rather confident that this is probably one of the best early year centres in Malawi.

So, where are we at with MTCC? The north site still needs to be completed. The other site however is open. Three rooms are operating and provide day care: the baby room, the toddler room, and pre-school. There are 30 children so far. There are three room leaders, one for each room, all three are volunteers from the UK. And at present there are 55 care-givers that are in the practical stage of their diploma course in child-care. The view is, the strongest candidates who are well-trained will continue their employment at the CC. The child-care diploma course? An absolutely amazing feat. Two volunteers who have been here for 18 months have single-handedly adapted and developed the Malawian Early Years curriculum (originally written by a member  of UNICEF) into this course, and have taught and delivered it. Once the care-givers qualify the hope is they will be apt to teach the Malawian Early Year Curriculum to a high standard. They are leaving in a few months, and I will continue with this, as well as take on some of the management responsibilities. So, it goes without saying, I am quite anxious. Marion and David are impossible acts to follow. Marion did initially consider to stick with the British Early Years Foundation, but then decided against it to ensure the children receive a Malawi-centric education.

I was initially under the impression that in order to financially sustain the free places that MTCC are offering the most vulnerable children from the local village, just under half of all allocated places need to be fully paid for- the fee paying children. However, that isn’t the case, the fee-paying children that enrol are only paying for their own places. The cost of the free places will be covered by sponsorship; some locally, others from UK contacts through the volunteers here.

So, why have a mix of fee-paying and sponsored children at the centre? Why not just have all the places as sponsored? In order to maintain a good social balance. What better way to build the aspirations of these sponsored children, but to put them alongside their privileged peers. When MTCC reach full capacity, they can provide day care for approximately 250 children. The idea is, 100 will be fee-paying, 100 will be sponsored, and 50 will receive subsidized rates if their parents are working for Beehive (Beehive will cover the remaining costs). We currently have just 4 fee-paying children. Now, although at present we have the money to allocate further places for the children of Beehive employees, and also for sponsored places, we’re holding off until we have more fee-paying children for fear that upper-middle class parents might not want to send their children here, if there are too many children from severely deprived areas of Chilomoni.

This has been my first task starting here. Promoting the profile of MTCC locally and advertising special offers on available places targeted exclusively at the upper-middle class of Blantyre, in order to increase the number of fee-paying children that enrol. Now, based on the standards of MTCC, it should be as easy as getting the parents through the door, the place should sell itself. With this in mind I organised a ‘fun’ day- (a teddy bear tea party) this Saturday just gone, advertising specifically in the privileged areas of Blantyre. Although it was a great day in so many ways, and many children came, we seemed to have just one or two potential fee-paying parents attend. This seems to be the challenge, getting people through the door. There is a reluctance to come to Chilomoni, which is perceived as a township.

To conclude my sentiments on early year provision, I once carried out a systematic research review on longitudinal studies that investigated the relationship between a series of factors present during the early years of life, with long term outcomes for the individual. The significance of these factors such as early attachment, positive parenting, nutrition, play.... is absolutely astounding.