Empowering Girls through Digital Education: The Journey of Sister Clementina Phiri

Sister Clementina Phiri started teaching at Kaseye Girls' Secondary School in 2007 before becoming headmistress in 2016.

She has seen the young girls at the school come on leaps and bounds in recent years thanks to the introduction of digital education, yet there is plenty of work to be done.

Having graduated in 1991, having studied in both Malawi and neighbouring Kenya, Sister Clementina initially harboured dreams to be a nurse.

Yet, teaching ran in the blood as both her parents were primary school teachers, inspiring her to dedicate herself to young people.

Reflecting on the differences afforded to the girls studying at Kaseye Secondary School, thanks to the internet, compared to her studies in Kasungu District in central Malawi, Sister Clementina said: “At this time they have a lot more resources to help them to learn, whereas in my time you just depended on the teacher and the books that were there.

“Away from the teacher, students can get information from the internet, from books and from friends on social media.”

Singing the praises of social media on young Malawians, Sister Clementina, noted its visibly positive effects on making rural parts of her country connected to the rest of the globe.

She continued: “They learn a lot from other cultures than we used to have, because the fact that they can interact from social media, it means it is easy to interact with people from different parts of the world and learn different things from the people they interact with which was not there in my time.”

Recounting her first interaction with digital technology, Sister Clementina, first used a computer in 1997 when a European missionary was training youngsters how to use ICT in a nearby school.

It took over two decades, however, for computers to arrive at Kaseye Girls' Secondary School, with the school now set up with 30 desktops.

In 2019, a digital library was installed by Next Generation Africa, which enabled youngsters to start gaining access to information despite not being connected to the internet at that time.

After several years in 2022, Sister Clementina was made aware of Xulendo software which made an immediate impact on the students.

“The 2022/2023 year results were so fantastic, every student passed the national exams with flying colours.”

Yet, despite being a prestigious national secondary school, in which students board, the girls at Kaseye are faced with numerous challenges.

“The girls come from middle earning families, so their finances per day, if we take it on average, most of them are earning less than a dollar a day, and yet they have big families that they have to support, this is a challenge for the young girls because it means that parents are unable to support their needs,” Sister Clementina explained.

“They need school fees, clothes, teaching and learning materials but parents cannot afford those things, and worse still, is that because for our school they need to pay school fees it means that we ask students ‘can you make calls to your parents for school fees?’ because they are overdue.

“As girls are growing up as adolescents, they need to look smart, but their parents cannot afford that of which it then affects them, that some may wish to be asking from those who have but that is not healthy for them.”

Some organisations help the girls with the school fees and materials but this is not enough – the girls depend on one another to support each other financially.

“In the school in general we train them that at least they need to be their sisters’ keeper,” said Sister Clementina, “when we open the term then it just becomes a routine to them, they contribute whatever they can, whether it is a tablet of soap, soap powder, writing materials, whatever they can afford to contribute is put together and is shared with the neediest students in the school.”

Aside from financial barriers, which often leave girls unable to travel back home after term time, with some living as far as 500km away unable to afford the transport costs, there are also social challenges.

“Some children come from broken families, which has an impact on their education because instead of concentrating on their studies sometimes they are worried about their mother or their father which also affects them.”

Sister Clementina explained that some of the 340+ students are also orphans.

The homes they are taken into, often cannot provide for both them and their guardians’ biological children.

Yet, the impact that both Xulendo and computer classes is having on the students not only helps them academically, but there is a positive psychological impact that the Headmistress notes witnessing them relishing each opportunity to interact with digital technology.

Speaking about the computer classes, she mused, “They know they need to be punctual because they know they have limited time, some even miss their meals so they can access information, because they are so excited.”

Recognising that though the “syllabus-oriented” approach that Xulendo has, makes a positive impact, she notes that it would be her dream for the program to be available to senior students and if the school had more computers due to the limited class time.

Reflecting on her own experience getting to grip with tech, Sister Clementina quipped: “I can grasp things but not as quickly as the young ones, so still I get that excitement [when I do] and I feel good to be doing things on my own!”