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International evidence indicates that keeping girls in school positively impacts their life trajectory and benefits the well-being of the next generation. Malawi has made progress in increasing overall enrollment rates, but additional effort is still needed to ensure that adolescent girls stay in school and complete a quality education. Starting in the upper grades of primary school, adolescent girls are more likely to drop out of school than their male counterparts with pregnancy, early marriage, and school fees frequently cited as the main reasons. One of the key challenges in Malawi will be to both focus on girls before they reach puberty and ensure that they get the support they need to complete primary school and successfully transition to secondary school. Meanwhile, adolescent boys will also need support and guidance to invest in their own education and to value the education of their female peers as a way to build stronger families and communities and break the inter-generational cycle of poverty. The Government of Malawi will need to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of its policy and programs, including those by partners, to scale and consolidate accordingly in order to avoid a scattered approach.

Adolescent Health --- Children and Youth --- Education --- Fertility --- Gender --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Primary Education --- Secondary Education --- Social Development

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This paper evaluates a government program in Malawi, which aimed to improve quality at community-based childcare centers and complemented these efforts with a group-based parenting support program. Children in the integrated intervention arm (teacher training and parenting) had significantly higher scores in measures of language and socio-emotional development than children in centers receiving teacher training alone at the 18-month follow-up. However, the study finds no effects on child assessments at the 36-month follow-up. Significant improvements at the centers relating to classroom organization and teacher behavior in the teacher-training only arm did not translate into improvements in child outcomes at either follow-up. The findings suggest that, in resource-poor settings with informal preschools, programs that integrate parenting support within preschools may be more effective than programs that simply improve classroom quality.

Early Childhood Development --- Education --- Parenting Education --- Preschool Teacher Training