Speaking during the official opening of Phalombe Teacher Training College, President Mutharika said his government values education and it is going towards a direction where it wants to make sure that students are given quality education by offering quality training to teachers.

“My goal is for Malawi to reach recommended teacher-pupil ratio in every school, every community, in every district. Every Malawian child from every family or village deserves quality education. I want Malawi to be a well-educated nation. That is the progressive agenda of the Democratic Progressive Party,” said Professor Mutharika.

Mutharika said education is fundamental for the country’s meaningful development and it remains the government’s agenda to make Malawi an educated nation.

“Teacher training colleges improve quality of education for our country. When we train more teachers, it means every teacher is given a small number of learners to teach. This means the teacher gives each learner more time, more attention, more care. That is why we are recruiting more teachers. That is also why we are constructing more teacher training colleges in Chikwawa, Mchinji and Rumphi,” explained the President in his speech.

Minister of Education, Science and Technology Dr Emmanuel Fabiano said training of teachers at the college will reduce the teacher:pupil ratio from the current 1:72 to 1:60 as government has started employing teachers and another cohort will be deployed in August.

Present at the opening ceremony was Head of UK-DFID in Malawi Miss Jane Manshal who said she was hopeful that the Teacher Training College will offer a lasting solution on the teacher: pupil ratio that is very high in the country.

“Education is very critical for the development of any nation. We hope that the students that will come here and learn the teaching profession will cause a great impact on the education system and reach out to as many pupils as possible. Let me also commend the government for showing great concern in enhancing the quality of education in the country,” said Manshal.

Manshal said she hoped that the student enrolment will have 50 percent of female student teachers to help act as role models and keep girls in school.

With state-of-the-art laboratory, library, hall and kitchen among others, 3.9 Billion Kwacha was used to build Phalombe Teacher Training College and it has an enrolment of 280 students who are trained as teachers.