For the optimum development of a country two approaches are indispensable. One is balanced growth and the other is diversification.
Balanced growth means that the growth of one sector should move in step with the growth of another sector so that they support each other. Diversification means introducing either other products or other industries instead of depending on one. A textile firm that manufactures kitenge cloth may introduce cotton blankets, men’s wear, so as to cater for a variety of customers. Alternatively on economy that depends on agriculture exclusively may diversify within the agriculture sector by planting a variety of crops or it may diversify at the industry level by introducing agro-based industries, go into mining or promote tourism. All this is said by way of introduction.
Our main concern in this essay will be balanced growth. Imagine a baby born today, one of its legs grows faster than the other. When it starts walking it will have a steady gait. One might guess that it will have to use a walking a stick to prevent itself from falling down. This is what most lame people do.
For economic growth to take place it must be matched or preceded by development in education. It is an acknowledged fact that without abundant and high quality education economic development will be negligible. Education is the source of skills and knowledge which are required in economic development and growth. But education to keep improving should provide with the money earned through producing and selling goods. What is the relationship between the educational and economic sector in Malawi at present?
Though at the primary and secondary school levels the ceilings have not been reached, at the tertiary level it seems we are approaching a glut.
In 2001, I was a member of a team of people from various countries that went on a visit to Quatamala and Ecuado South of America to study agricultural practices courtesy of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). I asked the leader of the delegation from Uganda how many more universities had Uganda built after Makerere. He told me nine more. Inwardly I felt that ten universities for a country the size of Uganda was too many. But 15 years later in my own smaller country Malawi I am not sure just how many universities there are, possibly approaching 20.
Apart from the government itself Christian denominational universities, other private, non-denomination providers are now and again introducing their newly approved institutions of higher learning.
Prima facia, this is good progress. But if the multiplication of graduates is not matched by the creation of jobs in the economic sector the imbalance will cause headache at no distant future.
As we approached independence 53 years ago our political leaders displayed confidence in economic and social services planning. Dr. Kamuzu Banda often said at rallies that while he was in Gweru prison, Zimbabwe, he had been working on plans to launch a variety of projects such a university, building a new capital city, improving the railway and road systems. Within 20 years after attaining independence the Ngwazi had achieved his objectives almost in full.
Sometime about the mid 1970s the strategy of five development plans was quietly dropped under the conception that a free market economy prices provided better guidance to business people as to what they should make and sell. Five year development plans were viewed as practices of fascism and communist countries.
Time has come for systematic planning of economic and social services. The government should tell those who want to establish new universities in Malawi that they should direct resources to job creating projects. A saturation of graduates as a result of job-scarcities would be a foundation for social disturbances.
Most of the newly introduced private universities are simply duplicating each other. They teach business administration, human resources management, computers and so on. Through social economic planning both deficiencies and gluts could be avoided and this is the purpose of balanced economic growth. Laissez faire is like saying never mind the result, bad or good.
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