Examining Performance And Challenges Of Private Universities In Malawi

Private higher education has been extensively accepted by many countries in the world,including Malawi due to its rising demand among the people.Are the private universities performing effectively?This study sought to examine the performance and challenges of the private universities in Malawi.The study was guided by three research questions which examined the performance and contributions of private universities,with a keen interest in finding out the status quo in terms of resources,and how universities accreditation policies as well as resources such as financial,human and physical were contributing or affecting their performance,so that challenges could be explored together with their mitigation strategies.Guided by the systems theory by Bertalanffy,this research was conducted at six private universities located in the Blantyre City in Malawi using a mixed methods research approach;utilizing the descriptive convergent parallel design.It involved a total of 152 respondents,drawing from students,teachers,heads of departments and registrars’populations,as well as twenty individuals working in both government and privately-owned organizations in Malawi.Questionnaires,interviews,documentary review and observations were used for collecting data.The key finding of this study was that private universities were contributing to the provision of education in Malawi since they were extending higher education opportunities to a lot of Malawians left out by public universities with relevant study programs.However,the study revealed that the quality of higher education offered in these universities left a lot to be desired due to numerous challenges starting from insufficient finances due to their over dependency on students’ fees,of which their enrolments were beyond minimum levels.This led to challenges of inadequacy of qualified teachers and physical resources such as infrastructures and equipment.As a result of all these hiccups,education quality was compromised since it was revealed that teaching in these universities was too much focused on theoretical knowledge rather than practical.The study therefore recommended that government should strengthen its monitoring and control efforts as well as support financially these institutions,and that private universities should come up with other ways of fund raising,as well as considering merging.