By Lusako Ng’ambi:
Girls Activists Youth Organization (GAYO) National Coordinator, Richard Batch has urged government to start publicizing national policies.
He was speaking in Lilongwe during a policy brief validation workshop on child protection and readimision policy.
Batch further noted that most policies, once put in place, there are just kept in officeels until they expire.
On the child protection and readimision policy, Batch said it is sad that until now, there have never been effort to popularize it among stakeholders, like teachers and parents.
“We have teachers have no knowledge about the policy content and in some schools there are no referral forms that show number of learners that were readimitted in schools which is making it difficult for stakeholders to trace and monitor their performance.
“On the other hand, we have seen school going children just loitering around when classes are in session. These children sometimes indulge themselves in bad behaviours like alcohol consumption, early relationships which result in teenage pregnancies,” he said.
Going forward, Batch said his organization is determined to conduct policy awareness meetings within it’s catchment area.
“We are going to take this policy to the rural area, we want to empower people to take stakeholder like the Parliamentary Committee on Education through their representatives, child welfare and finance committees to be proactive,” he said.
Malawi Institute of Management (MIM) Executive Director, Jessy Kabwira said policy brief recommendations should get to the policy makers as soon as possible inorder to achieve it’s intended purpose.
