Malawi’s vice chancellor is leading the way for women leaders

“People were celebrating – not just in higher education but across the country,” recalls Address Mauakowa Malata, vice-chancellor of the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST), on the occasion of becoming the first woman to head a university in the country.

Public celebrations marking appointments to university leadership positions, however historic, are difficult for many to imagine. To understand this response, it is important to consider the incredible odds that women in Malawi must overcome to obtain an education: according to a 2022 United Nations report, only 27% of girls attend secondary school and only 5% graduate. With only about 8,000 places available each year in Malawi’s six public universities – the country’s population is 20 million – reaching bachelor’s level is an achievement in itself.

Professor Malata knows about these struggles. Apart from her and her siblings, no one in her village went to high school. “I went to school without shoes – I also had to repeat the second grade because my grades were poor,” said Professor Malata.

“I travel all over Malawi telling my story and encouraging girls to apply to us – it’s not easy because we are a science and technology university, but some students say these conversations helped them keep going and they are now studying. “

Campus Resource Collection: Wisdom from Women Leaders in Higher Education

Professor Malata trained as a nurse before completing her PhD at Edith Cowan University in Australia, and later returned to teach at the University of Malawi, where she served as Principal of the Kamuzu College of Nursing from 2008 to 2015. She joined MUST as deputy vice president in early 2016, became chancellor, but within months was given the top job, promising radical changes and development of the institution founded only four years earlier.

The abolition of the election of deans and heads of departments – a legacy from the University of Malawi’s existence – has proven controversial, Professor Malata explained.

“People were selected who were not involved (in their department) – not because they were the best candidates, but because they were buying drinks for their friends,” Professor Malata said. “I was told that people would not accept it, but it is now standard in all universities in Malawi.

“We were also the first university to integrate entrepreneurship into the curriculum, with students spending a minimum of six to eight weeks in industry. This has had a huge impact – on graduation day, I often ask students about their plans, and many of them will tell me they already have a job lined up,” she continued, adding that one recent graduate started an agricultural technology company that now employs 1,000 people. graduates. “Things like this really make a difference in Malawi,” she said.

Raising established standards is difficult for any university leader, but Professor Malata believes that as a female leader at an older university, this might be beyond her capabilities. “If I had been appointed to an established university (with more history), it might not have been so easy – you would have had to contend with lecturers, researchers and students. In this situation, I could push through the matter with the opposition, she thought.

With a tertiary enrollment rate of 2 percent for men and 1 percent for women, Malawi’s major challenge is the rapid development of the university sector. To achieve its goal of becoming a lower middle-income country by 2030 – in a category with a tertiary enrollment rate of 25% – it will be necessary to have 1.2 million people aged 18 to 24 with higher education education, said Malawian scientist Steve Sharra. Currently, there are only about 81,000 students enrolled in universities, both public and private.

Professor Malata, however, was optimistic that universities in Malawi could develop if given adequate resources. “We created a lot of programs that weren’t here before I came – there was no manufacturing engineering program. Now we have one, plus degrees in biomedical and chemical engineering and computer systems. In fact, our cybersecurity students won the competition held in Cape Town, which shows that we can create courses that compete with the best in Africa,” she said.

Unusually for an academic institution, MUST has its own cultural studies department. “At our School of Culture and Heritage you can study African music,” said Professor Malata, checking the name of the most popular export of this East African country, apart from tobacco, sugar and coffee.

Encouraging more female students to study STEM subjects will be one of the many challenges facing the Malawi sector. “I was the only woman at my university with a doctorate, and now we have eight, but it’s still not enough. I know how difficult it is to pursue an academic career and have children – and one of my children was very ill – so I did a lot of mentoring to help faculty in their careers.”

In March, Malawi appointed another woman as vice-chancellor – University of Warwick graduate Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, who will run the Catholic University of Malawi – but Professor Malata was concerned about more people taking up their position. “I look at the pipeline and I don’t see many women – my department is mostly men. I wonder if another woman will soon run a university in Malawi.”

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