They leave their homes for what they call a school. They do not care, as long as they get what they want: education.

You follow one of them to see where he gets education. The discovery is shocking: The boy goes to a carport and finds his friends also sitting down. A portable chalkboard in front. That is enough for a classroom. All they need is a teacher.

When it is national examinations time, the learners use pigsty as their hall. To them, these facilities, provided by the Natural Resources College (NRC) are enough.

But when a spade is called by its name, not a big spoon, the conditions the learners are in are not conducive for them to perform in national examinations. Ngowe Community Day Secondary School in Lilongwe is not fit to be a school.

To make matters worse, some classes are about half a kilometre away from the administration block. Every day, the learners have to take chairs from the office to one of the school blocks.

Ethel Mangwiro Jiya, is the school’s headmistress. She says life at the school has been tough to both teachers and learners.

“We do not have permanent structures to call this a school. NRC just provided some kraals and other structures we use as classes and administration block,” she says.

But through European Union (EU) supported Improving Secondary Education in Malawi (ISEM) Programme, government has started constructing new classroom blocks and other structures at the school.

Jiya is now all smiles.

“We are happy that the EU is constructing modern structures. Classrooms, a library and a laboratory. Our learners have never used laboratories before. We were even finding it difficult to keep laboratory chemicals. At the moment, they are kept in a room which is also used as my office. I inhale chemicals on daily basis,” she says.

Jiya says the situation is very bad in rainy season, considering the half a kilometre the learners have to walk on daily basis between the classrooms and the staff room, where chairs are kept.

“This will now completely change upon completion of this project. More learners will now come to this school.  In the past people used to believe that Ngowe CDSS, was a school where people are going as a punishment. Even myself, I came from Mchinji Secondary School. When I came here, I nearly cried: looking at the building, looking at the office, they were really bad. But I am happy.  When we are shown the plans, how the school will be, I am always happy,” Jiya says.

She says learners will no longer be requesting to be transferred to other schools.

Evidently, with a school hall, modern classrooms and laboratories, the learners will take Ngowe their destination, in as far as the search for quality education is concerned, thanks to the support from the EU.

Chairperson of School Committee, Samuel Loudon, says the mockery learners at the school were getting will be history.

“Learners of other schools have been saying that here students are learning in kraals. But this development will definitely change that attitude. It will be a school every one will want to come to,” Laudon says. 

Under ISEM, there is a component of motivating female students to go far with education. At Ngowe, such a project is being done by Foundation for Irrigation and Sustainable Development (FISD).

Chimwemwe Zidana, a counsellor from FISD says the bursary being provide by FISD will help many students.

“This will help many students to be going to school especially when they are menstruating. We expect that more girls will be coming to school,” Zidana says.