Page 191 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

168 N. Thomson

has been reached at the lower levels. However, levels of resource provision to schools
is very low and their distribution uneven. The system has high dropout rates, especially
for girls in higher grades, and only small increases in completion rates. Further, the
overall performance of pupils has been decreasing significantly. Malawi faces a
major task to deliver quality and relevant education.
The country is landlocked and comprises farmers who have limited amounts of
land and resources. And, the amount of land for each farmer has diminished with each
generation as the population has grown. Recently, the country faced a food crisis in
2005, the result of drought, floods, and a disastrous maize harvest. Huge amounts of
food aid, costing more than $100 million, barely averted widespread starvation. The
President decided to ignore the consensus advice of the World Bank, the US Agency
for International Development, and other developmental agencies (Beardsley 2009).
Rather than rely on incentives to boost market efficiencies, he provided smallholders
with subsidized inorganic fertilizer (two 50-kg bags per household) and a few kilo-
grams of subsidized seeds. Most farmers opted for using hybrid seed. The increase in
national maize production was immediate: the country’s maize deficit of a half-
million metric tons turned into a maize surplus a year later. By 2007, production had
tripled, and Malawi broke its maize harvest record. Production fell back in 2008,
when drought struck again, but still met national requirements. The cost of the program
was less than half the cost of food aid in 2005.
Yet the Malawi program is not without critics. Proponents of traditional and
organic farming fear that providing farmers with inorganic fertilizer will encourage
dependency. It could also leave them vulnerable to increases in the price of natural
gas, which is consumed in large amounts to make the component chemicals.
Inorganic fertilizer promotes emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas,
and it can encourage soil erosion. Moreover, crops grown from hybrid seeds, which
are supplied by corporations, may be less resilient than traditional landraces to pests
and changes in rainfall patterns. For these reasons, the proliferation of look-alike
schemes in Africa is not universally hailed as progress. However, organic farming
may not be suited to the nutrient-depleted soils common in Africa. The Freedom
Gardens created by Dr. Chinkhuntha has been developed in “reclaimed swampland,”
but swamplands are also known as “natural wetlands” and these are known to have
very fertile soils. The Malawi program of unsustainable solutions could provide time
for vulnerable populations, while the infrastructure for more sustainable agriculture
is developed through innovations, such as the Freedom Gardens.
The use of real-time technologies for distance communication of farmers, teachers,
and students especially interfaced with visualizations is a positive and African way
of sharing ideas through real people conversing. It is far superior to using paper
documents. However, it should not be forgotten that with the technologies new prob-
lems are arising such as electronic wastes (e-waste). A not too far away neighbor of
Malawi has problems of ecojustice where coltan is being mined. Coltan is the local
Congolese word for columbite-tantalite, a metallic ore comprising Niobium and
Tantalum. It is found mainly in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of
Congo (formally Zaire). When refined, coltan becomes a heat-resistant powder,
metallic tantalum that has unique properties for storing electrical charge. Coltan is a