Schools Linking in association with:
School Profile
KAPUTU PRIMARY SCHOOL
Kaputu Local Education Authority Primary School is 4km away from Salima District Assembly and 21km from Lake Malawi.
The school was established under the request from the chiefs in 1975. The school management starts from the Staff, School Committee, PTA (Parents Teachers Association) then to the District Education Manager. The school however is a governmental school despite being established by the local people hence called Local Education Authority (LEA).
The school has been tremendously developed by Starfish UK-Malawi project. Starfish built on the school 4 classroom blocks, an administration block, 3 teachers’ houses, five double toilets, feeding every child a meal during schooling days, shipping tables and chairs from the UK, providing clothes as well as providing scholarship for the best 10 pupils every year. With all these remarkable tasks, Starfish has changed the motives of children in the community to a schooling life. Children used drop out school in such large numbers. The school had an enrolment ofaround five hundred before Starfish. As of now children are flocking to the school and even those from the nearby schools.
Kaputu is one of the best schools in Salima. Currently there’s a great competition in classes due to provision of scholarships to secondary schools.
Kaputu School has 1155 pupils in total who are in classes 1-8.
Classes have pupils as follows:
Class 1: 100 Boys, 92 Girls.
Class 2: 107 Boys, 110 Girls.
Class 3: 100 Boys, 99 Girls.
Class 4: 76 Boys, 70 Girls.
Class 5: 99 Boys, 81 Girls.
Class 6: 52 Boys, 55 Girls.
Class 7: 35 Boys, 21 Girls.
Class 8: 42 Boys, 17 Girls.
The age range of the school is 6-16 because some children start going to school late or are repeating classes if they fail the end of year tests. However, this factor doesn’t disturb education system in Malawi. Although Primary education in Malawi is free but not compulsory, the school drop out rate of the school is also high as you can see from the data form, enrolment declines sharply as we go into the senior classes especially for girls. There are several reasons that contribute to this like long distances children have to walk to school, overcrowding in classes and high pupil teacher ratio among others.
Kaputu School serves a distance of about 3 km in radius.
Like any other school in Malawi, Kaputu School teaches subjects like, English, Maths, Religious Education, and General Studies. In classes 4 and above pupils begin to learn life skills this mostly concerns HIV/ AIDS, Agriculture, Science, Home Economics, Creative arts. Most explanatory is in Chichewa since children can not understand English well in standard 1-4. However, children may be capable to speak English as one reaches 6-8 i.e. in their senior primary classes.
The school has 23 teachers, 19 female teacher and 4 male teachers.
Kaputu has a girl guide and is looking to correspond with other girls around the world.
As a school, we want to be involved in the link so that we can learn from our friends in the UK especially in the developed countries. The link will greatly assist children to work hard so that they can be as their colleagues in the UK. Teachers will also be able to enhance their professional skills through dialogue and interaction with fellow teachers in the UK.