The African Network for the Prevention and Protection of Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN)- Malawi Chapter yesterday awarded 80 girls at Naotcha Primary School in Blantyre for their good performance under the project ‘Thinking Future, Keeping Girls in School’.
The organisation honoured the learners with items such as school bags, instruments, notebooks, ball pens, rulers, among other things, to encourage them to stay in school due to high number of girl-child dropouts.
“We initiated the project to curtail girl-child school dropout, early marriages and early pregnancies. Through this project, a lot of girls are in school. Since school has now closed, we are planning to add eight more primary schools in September this year,” said Marie Vauban, a programmes manager for the organisation.
Head teacher for the school, Stenford Matewere, s a id the school was experiencing increased cases of girl-child dropout due to poverty, early marriages and early pregnancies.
“Since ANPPCAN started implementing the project three months ago, the story has changed. The girls show interest in school, they work hard so that they should be awarded when they perform well and cases of absenteeism has been curtailed,” he said.
Matewere said most girls who dropped out of school were from Standard Five through to Standard Eight.
“It’s very rare to find pupils from Standard One through to Standard Four dropping out of School. However, it is very common for girls from the upper classes to drop out of school since they look much older and are sometimes forced either by their parents or poverty to drop out of school,” he said.
ANPPCAN has implemented the project in five schools in Blantyre, two schools in Chikwawa and one school in Mulanje.
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