Meritocracy: A Remedy to Addressing Social Injustices in Selecting Students to Public Higher Education in Malawi?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v15i4.5541Keywords:
equity, higher education, Malawi, meritocracy, quota system, social justiceAbstract
This essay analyzes whether an ostensibly merit-based policy of selecting students to public higher education can act as a remedy to ameliorate social injustices in Malawi’s education system. We address this question through the lens of equity based on a broader discussion of ethnicity in Malawi. The paper is organized in the following sections. First, we provide an overview of the geography of Malawi. This is followed by a detailed review of the literature on the education system focusing on access and equity between the predecessor quota system and the current merit-based policy. The article concludes by arguing that merit-based policy is very likely to perpetuate rather than ameliorate social injustices in education, as the future of students attending under-resourced schools is in jeopardy to access public higher education. Therefore, we strongly recommend that the Malawi government consider re-adopting the quota system, which if designed carefully could serve to address social injustices in access to higher education.
References
Crossman, A. (2019, August 27). Understanding meritocracy from a sociological perspective. ThoughtCo. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/meritocracy-definition-3026409
Erivwo, A, Varghese, E., Mathai, A., & Afrin, T. (2021). Meritocracy in the educational system. Across the Spectrum of Socieconomics, 1(4), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4740695
Galafa, B. (2019). Higher education reforms in Malawi with specific reference to equitable access. Makerere Journal of Higher Education, 10(2), 33–52.
Government of Malawi (2019). Malawi population and housing census:
Main report. National Statistical Office. Zomba, Malawi. Retrieved from https://www.econbiz.de/Record/malawi-population-and-housing-census-main-report/10012292981
Gunde, A. M., Chikaipa, V., & Manthalu, C. H. (2021). A rhetorical analysis of affirmative action debate towards higher education access in Malawian democracy. In C. H. Manthalu, V. Chikaipa, & A. M. Gunde (Eds.), Education, communication and democracy in Africa (pp. 125–136). Routledge.
Horsford, S. D., Scott, J. T., & Anderson, G. L. (2018). The politics of education policy in an era of inequality: Possibilities for democratic schooling. Routledge.
Inoue, K., & Oketch, M. (2008). Implementing free primary education policy in Malawi and Ghana: Equity and efficiency analysis. Peabody Journal of Education, 83(1), 41–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25594775
Kadzamira, E., & Rose, P. (2003). Can free primary education meet the needs of the poor?: Evidence from Malawi. International Journal of Educational Development, 23(5), 501–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0738-0593(03)00026-9
MacJessie-Mbewe, S. (2002). An analysis of free primary education reform policy in Malawi. International Journal of Educational Reform, 11(2), 94–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/105678790201100201
MacJessie-Mbewe, S., & Nampota, D. C. (2007). Urban primary schooling in Malawi: Opportunities and challenges. In W. Pink & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 115–128). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5199-96
Mambo, M., Meky, M., Tanaka, N., & Salmi, J. (2016). Improving higher education in Malawi for competitiveness in the global economy. World Bank Publications. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/24381
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology [MoEST] (2019). Malawi educational sector analysis. Government of Malawi.
Msiska, M. (2015). Student satisfaction with university lecturers in Malawi: A case study of a private university. International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research, 3(4), 582-589.
Mashininga, K. (2020, 31 May). Government abolishes the quota system for university selection. University World News, Africa Edition. Retrieved from https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200531153434780
Mijs, J. J. (2016). The unfulfillable promise of meritocracy: Three lessons and their implications for justice in education. Social Justice Research, 29, 14–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-014-0228-0
Piketty, T. (2020). Capital and ideology. Harvard University Press.
Sandel, M. (2020). The tyranny of merit: What’s become of the common good? Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
Smith, E. (2018). Key Issues in Education and Social Justice (2nd ed). Sage.
Sosu, E., Nyarko, N. Y., Fleischer-Djoleto, D., Mtika, P., Pimenta, S., Wilson, C., & Nyartsikor, M. (2019). Closing the inequality gap in children’s educational attainment in Ghana-A research brief. https://doi.org/10.17868/67642
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The findings, interpretations, conclusions, and views expressed in Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education (JCIHE) are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to CIES, HESIG, or the sponsoring universities of the Editorial Staff. These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. Readers are free to copy, display, and distribute articles that appear in JCIHE as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and JCIHE, it is distributed for non-commercial purposes only, and no alteration or transformation is made in the work. All other uses must be approved by the author(s) or JCIHE. By submitting a manuscript, authors agree to transfer without charge the following rights to JCIHE upon acceptance of the manuscript: first worldwide serial publication rights and the right for JCIHE to grant permissions as its editors judge appropriate for the redistribution of the article, its abstract, and metadata associated with the article in professional indexing and reference services.
