The first 8 years of school are required, children enter at age 6. The first four years are their local language, then switches to English. Secondary school is 4 years. Few students are chosen to enter university.
"Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life. Malawi literacy rate for 2015 was 62.14%, a 3% decline from 2014. (Macrotrends, 2020)"
Malawi has numerous health concerns, which frequently affects school age children and makes it difficult to focus on school when you're hungry, sick, or dealing with having to help provide for your family.
It's almost impossible to think that this is the reality of a classroom for Malawi youth. In ever growing populations there is a huge strain for classroom sizes and teachers to teach the classes.