Kenya doesn't have much of an infrastructure for hosting a film.
quote by Ralph Fiennes
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Related quotes
Girls On Film (Night Version)
See them walking hand in hand
Across the bridge at midnight
Heads turning as the lights flashing out
Are so bright
And walk right out to the four line track
There's a camera rolling on her back
On her back
And I sense a rhythm humming in a frenzy
All the way down her spine
Girls on Film
Girls on Film
Girls on Film
Girls on Film
Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling
And miles of sharp blue water coming in
Where she lies
The diving man's coming up for air
'Cause the crowd all love pulling Dolly by the hair
By the hair
And she wonders how she ever got here
As she goes under again
Girls on Film (Two minutes later)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (Got your picture)
Girls on Film
Wider, baby, smile and you've just made a million
Fuses pumping live heat twisting out on a wire
Take one last glimpse into the night
I'm touching close
I'm holding bright, holding tight
Give me shudders in a whisper,
Take me up til I'm shooting a star
Girls on Film (she's more than a lady)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (Two minutes later)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (see you together)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (see you later)
Girls on Film
song performed by Duran Duran
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Girls On Film
See them walking hand in hand across the bridge at midnight
Heads turning as the lights flashing out are so bright
Then walk right out to the fourline track
Theres a camera rolling on her back on her back
And I sense the rhythms humming in a frenzy
All the way down her spine
Girls on film
Girls on film
Girls on film
Girls on film
Lipstick cherry all over the lens as shes falling
In miles of sharp blue water coming in where she lies
The diving mans coming up for air
Cause the crowd all love pulling dolly by the hair, by the hair
And she wonders how she ever got here
As she goes under again
Girls on film (two minutes later)
Girls on film
Girls on film (got your picture)
Girls on film
Wider baby smiling youve just made a million
Fuses pumping live heat twisting out on a wire
Take one last glimpse into the night
Im touching close Im holding bright, holding tight
Give me shudders with a whisper take me high
Till I Im shooting a star
Girls on film (shes more than a lady)
Girls on film
Girls on film (see you together)
Girls on film
Girls on film (see you later)
Girls on film
Girls on film (two minutes later)
song performed by Duran Duran
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TV Guide
i was a television hosting a cartoon,
on early saturday mornings, to take away your blues,
i was your comedian on those rainy afternoons,
giving you a smile in a soothing room,
you were so young with your painted dreams,
an idealistic boy, you wanted to keep them,
i watched you grow and thought 'perhaps',
you'd be the sower with the perfect hem,
i was a television hosting an empty screen,
'cause you grew older and lost time for me,
i was your comedian without a jokes,
for you to hear under you counseling yoke,
you were so young with your textbooks,
stitching useless knowledge in place of your dreams,
i watched you learn and thought 'someday',
you'd have the time to finish sowing,
i was a television hosting a commercial,
while you slept to regain energy,
i was your comedian to help you,
have a laugh and become healthy,
you were so young curled up with your dreams,
in a remedy of blankets you fell asleep,
i watched you dream of a peace that was dead,
but you reconnected it with your needle and red thread,
i was a television hosting the 10 o'clock,
when you were wise and watched the newscaster,
no comedian could entice a smile,
on that evening when they televised the disaster,
you were so young, i saw it drip from your eyes,
sympathy spilled as you calmed your wife,
i watched you pack and thought 'of course',
you'd sacrifice a loom for a country at war,
i was a television hosting a cartoon,
to take away your grandchildren's blues,
i was the comedian on that rainy afternoon,
and enjoyed your smile in that old soothing room,
you looked so young dressed in wrinkles and gray hair,
everyone else grew up, but they wished....
i watched you age backwards, and thought 'you never did',
yeah, you still dream, yeah, your still that kid,
your still that kid.
poem by Jordan Crider
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We Can Create A Modern International Community
And I wonder when Congress will allow public nationwide schools...
in the United States to set aside time for children again to pray?
To pray for, or quietly reflect on behalf of, their once great Nation!
To pray for their nation during this proclaimed danger time...
of struggle against the forces of evil dark international terrorism!
But in the White House lurks a dark soul of 100% fetus murder!
Barack against murder international terrorism with Pro-Abortion Record!
Like Pharaoh in the time of the birth of Moses, like King Harold at the birth of Jesus, killing innocent children based on state law is ok in America today!
Why? How can this be? On 9th of March 2008 Barack proclaimed “We were once were, we are no longer a Christian nation, at least not just....”
No Ten Commandments, No God’s law displayed in government buildings!
15th April 2009 Barack proclaimed “We can create a modern international community that is respectful that is secure that is prosperous....
(in an aside to himself) and like Baal Worshippers we will support propagate
State Policies funding killing innocent children against the will of the majority of Americans and I Barack will use tax payer dollars to kill innocent unborn! We will fill White House high office with Pro Abortion all! Yes We Can!
Darth Vader will create a universal New World Order!
And in the on going baby killing sweepstakes infant killer Obama selects: -
Pro-Abortion Sen. Joe Biden as Obama’s vice-presidential running mate. Pro-Abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s White House Chief of Staff.
Pro-Abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary.
Former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of Obama’s Department of Justice Review Team. Next appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel.
Betta check Obama’s rap sheet Pro-Abortion Record, for the rest of his all star elite baby killing machine selections.
'President Barack Obama's Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) - The following is a compilation of bill signings, speeches, appointments and other actions that President Barack Obama has engaged in that have promoted abortion before and during his presidency. While Obama has promised to reduce abortions and some of his supporters believe that will happen, this long list proves his only agenda is promoting more abortions.
During the presidential election, Obama selected pro-abortion Sen. Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate.
Post-Election / Pre-Inauguration
November 5,2008 - Obama selects pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has a 0% pro-life voting record according to National Right to Life.
November 19,2008 - Obama picks pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Daschle has a long pro-abortion voting record according to National Right to Life.
November 20,2008 - Obama chooses former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of his Department of Justice Review Team. Later, he finalizes her appointment as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Obama administration.
November 24,2008 - Obama appoints Ellen Moran, the former director of the pro-abortion group Emily's List as his White House communications director. Emily's List only supports candidates who favored taxpayer funded abortions and opposed a partial-birth abortion ban.
November 24,2008 - Obama puts former Emily's List board member Melody Barnes in place as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.
November 30,2008 - Obama named pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton has an unblemished pro-abortion voting record and has supported making unlimited abortions an international right.
December 10,2008 - Obama selects pro-abortion former Clinton administration official Jeanne Lambrew to become the deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Planned Parenthood is 'excited' about the selection.
[...] Read more
poem by Terence George Craddock
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When I'll Have My Dream
I read about MLK junior
His dreams in Birmingham and on the streets
I followed the words and tone clear
Still I hear his cry for a just society I his s[speeches
He fought for the proletariat with his life
Took a bullet for people he knew
Not in person but for problems shared
A great man who’ll live forever
Should have been his epitaph
But as for me and my house- me myself and I
Shall bid time waiting for my dream
Up in the mountains in skies blue
My dream shall come from
I beg it be released
So that I can change destiny
Of Kenya, my Africa
I’m not Obama getting a dream from his father
Not a freedom fighter forty years ago
Dreaming for a free Kenya, Africa
By their blood freedom was recaptured
But lo! The betrayal that is the aftermath
Impotent post-independence ashes are about
Kenya my Kenya please forgive me your son
Africa my Africa inspire me
I need a dream now to save all
Children dying hungry learning not ABC
poem by Kelvin Karani
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Experimental Film
The color of infinity
Inside an empty glass
I'm squinting my eye
And turning off and on and on
and off the light
It's for this experimental film
Which nobody knows about and which
I'm still figuring out what's going to go
In my experimental film
Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's
I already know the ending
It's the part that makes your face implode
I don't know what makes your face implode
But that's the way the movie ends
And in my experimental film
Which nobody knows about but which
I'm still figuring out your face implodes
At my experimental film
Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it--
Even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's
The color of infinity
Inside an empty glass
It's for this experimental film
Which nobody knows about and which
I'm still figuring out what's going to go
In my experimental film
Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's gonna--
Yeah, you're gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it--
Even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's
song performed by They Might Be Giants
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The Film Of My Love
Co-starring you
And co-starring me
Starring us both together
The film of my love
Will travel the world
Forever and ever and ever
A back lot romance
A scripted affair
The screenplay a blessing from heaven
Were gone with the wind
On the orient express
To join the magnificent seven
The film of my love
Will travel the world
And travel the whole world over
The film of my love
Will travel the world
Over and over and over
The film of my love
Will travel the world
Over and over and over
Over and over and over again
Over and over and over
A close-up of yours
A long shot of mine
Superimposed together
Ill zoom in on you
With a love that is true
In cinemascope forever
A clapper board kiss
Theres an oscar in this
A hit or a miss whatever
A box office wedding
A premier for two
Well be on location forever
When pathe recall
The thrill of it all
Theyll edit us both together
A legend a classic
An epic of love
Captured on film forever
A lasting embrace
That time cant erase
Let them censor the wind
Or the weather
The film of my love
Will conquer the world
Forever and ever and ever
The film of my love
Will travel the world
[...] Read more
song performed by 10 Cc
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King Is White & In The Crowd
Talking by the pool of light, language from america.
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
They are not a melting pot, say no, say no tapestry
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
She takes his hand and she says youll stay
Shes lost in the crowd
King
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Lovers run camp africa, bars in town are civilised
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Panorama, citylife
Youths dance proud from the waist down
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Shot from where the action is, a rhapsody in black and blue
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Love lies under western eyes, powerful yet transient
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Words & music : simple minds (c) emi publishing ltd reproduced without permission
song performed by Simple Minds
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King Is White And In The Crowd
Talking by the pool of light, language from Americ.
a
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
They are not a melting pot, say no, say no tapestry
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
She takes his hand and she says you'll stay
She's lost in the crowd
King
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Lovers run camp Africa, Bars in town are civilised
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
Panorama, Citylife
Youth's dance proud from the waist down
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
Shot from where the action is, a rhapsody in black and blue
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
Love lies under western eyes, powerful yet transient
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
song performed by Simple Minds
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This be the last time we use the phrase 'Slumdog
We, as Indians, have reasons
To be proud of having
Created history by the film
“Slumdog Millionaire”
At the same time, we, as human beings,
Have to have hung our heads for
Having created slums
Slum, as it means
An overcrowded area of a city,
Where the housing is in a very bad condition
And people live in unhygienic conditions
With no basic facilities
And who created slums,
Not the people residing there
But those whose greed has brought
These slum dwellers into these
Unfit-for-living conditions
The technicalities employed in
Filming this movie deserve all praise
While the different ways of living
Of the slum dwellers equally deserve attention
Of the entire human race
For correction and improvement
The film was declared to be
The best-directed
While the slum tribes have no directions
And they have no one to direct
The film was declared to be
The best film
While the slum where the film was shot
Is the worst place
For any human being
Let the recognition of the film
Bring to light the plight of slumdogs
To the fore
And let the human race do everything
Possible to move these people
Out of the slums, wherever they are,
And to help them live a decent, if not better, living
We shall be doing a great service
If this becomes the last ever time
We use this phrase “Slumdog”
poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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Girl And Gun
“All that you need is a girl and a gun
if you making a film, ” said Jean-Luc Godard.
In the dark with a girl you can have as much fun
as a guy who’s been laid in a film that is noir,
but if, when you switch on the light, you discover
the girl isn’t loaded, walk out of the trailer,
and if she complains that you’ve been a bad lover,
take out a revolver with which you can nail her.
Inspired by Manohla Dargis’s review of Gustav Deutsch’s “Film 1st, a Girl & an Gun” in the December 2,2009 NYT (“The Old Clips, A Paradise Found and Lost”) :
“To make a film, ” Jean-Luc Godard once memorably said, “all you need is a girl and a gun.” (A little money helps.) In “Film Ist. a Girl & a Gun, ” the Austrian director Gustav Deutsch complicates this witty, deceptively simple formula with a wealth of found footage (material shot by others for other purposes) borrowed from film archives from around the world. As the title suggests, there are girls (voluptuous, ecstatic, threatened) and there are guns (hard, phallic, threatening) along with something of a narrative. If the narrative that Mr. Deutsch has created is rather less thrilling than his mostly silent and often glorious images, this is nonetheless a story well worth considering, and watching. Using material gathered from the likes of the Imperial War Museum (in Britain) and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction (at Indiana University) , he has fashioned something of an origin story about cinema itself. It’s a tale that begins with an unidentified image of a woman in buckskin shooting at some targets and ends with a cowboy bandit pointing his gun at the camera, an image appropriated from Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 short, “The Great Train Robbery, ” one of the most famous in cinema history. Tucked between these loaded images, as it were, is a vision of cinematic paradise, found and lost.
Tumult of a kind pursues the shooting woman (nothing new there) in the form of a mesmerizing, mysterious shot of what looks like an archery target in flames and some text (“at the first Chaos came to be”) from “Theogony, ” an epic Greek poem by Hesiod about the origin of the world. The archery target gives way to fiery orange images of billowing smoke and some electronic thrumming. (The intermittent score tends to underscore the obvious.) The thrumming turns to droning, the smoke turns to lava, followed by more Hesiod (“wide-bosomed earth”) , a woman with bountiful breasts, “Paradeisos” (Greek for paradise) and naked beachfront frolickers…
Women turn out to be the fly in the ointment in “a Girl & a Gun.” (“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor” or so it says in Ecclesiastes.) Among the many images that follow, many beautifully and floridly tinted, are sleeping, dreaming and fornicating clothed and unclothed women. In one early section, a woman drowsing in a steam room seems to dream of both an undulating jellyfish and a swimming man. In another section, a woman watches a man spin four strange dials hidden behind a cabinet, as if he were initiating her into a secret world. (On the soundtrack, you hear “she dies.”) A world, a subsequent shot suggests — of a woman reading a newspaper with the headline “Cine Monde” — that has been made from images…With “a Girl & a Gun, ” Mr. Deutsch brings in Eros and Thanatos to a seductive if familiar end.
12/2/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Essentials Shift
Essentials shift.
Just as priorities do,
When it becomes clear...
The atmosphere is hosting change.
And what is familiar has to be let go.
Like a replacing of a generation,
Growing to develop with understanding...
To comprehend to them what is known,
With a reaching to experience...
Another plateau,
Essentials shift.
And to hold on to that which has gone,
Is not recommended as time moves on.
Essentials shift.
Just as priorities do,
When it becomes clear...
The atmosphere is hosting change.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Nairobi Affair
For the love of the African Nature
The eloquence of the eastern Swahili
The springs in the mountains,
Hot water, geysers of nature
Should we go and explore
Me and my love in Nairobi
Walking the roads towards Mombasa,
The diversity we witness,
Mgini, we enter the hot towns
Alipoteleya, the adventures so great
Nairobi, so we shall wed
Mgini Nairobi, lovers under the sun
The safari of two love birds,
Seeing the winds passover
Having lunch with the Loi,
Dinner with the Gikuyu
Lovers in Nairobi are we,
Naomba Nairobi, me and you yes
Lets build a house my love,
Nyumbani, Kenya we wont leave
We are lovers in Nairobi,
The beauty of Africa we witness,
Its taste wont despair,
Seeing Africa in Kenya
Come along my lover,
In Nairobi lets make babies,
We are lovers in Nairobi
poem by Gaylord Munemo
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Karisa, Wangari, Michuki and Karume
Now I know what heaven requires
This I learnt in a black, blackish week
The gospel about the humble and the meek
The passing on of one man who my soul inspires
And that of another whose memory will like glue stick
Also, one man whose vibrancy made graft creek
In-charge of the government local though not as weak
I know as well what bliss doesn't yearn for,
Not for men who perform as four
Or for women who only assume the front form
Seldom for hypocritical international pacifiers
Rather for a local governor like Karisa
Or a change driver who fuelled affirmatives in his maisha
Like one Michuki whose footstep made retrogressions quiver
Once in a while, a Karume whose progress would never waver
Governance in Heaven badly needed to keep it clean
From mother Kenya it found a local government champ
Karisa cleaned heaven and restored the local lamp
Then heaven realized clean fell short of green
God needed someone to sustain the eternal springs
From Kenya Wangari came, soaring minus wings
Gabriel needed to guard Wangari from what the adversary brings
Only a Kenyan Michuki could silence the foe with his stings
Yet without any sagacious investments,
Heaven would be a retirement home without cents
The realization provoked the need for Karume
A true darling and a wizened murume
Who could purchase all Konza could offer in one cheque
Thus, the local governance restored sanity,
Eden could go back to green instantly,
While firm actions courted words immediately
And golden chariots began shining glamorously
Heaven could not do,
Without Karisa, Wangari, Michuki and Karume
poem by David Munene wa Kimberly
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One Kenya, United We Stand
Diverse ethnicity forty-two tribes in all,
Like multi-coloured attire in a shopping mall,
Or diverse goods upon a supermarket stall,
So are the many tribes, one flag unites us all,
So said our second President, united we stand divided fall.
Variety they say, is the spice of life,
So why, I ask, dear countrymen, is the strife,
Discrimination, of Kikuyu ‘gainst Luo need not be rife,
Since together, forward we move and get on with life,
Therefore we need to co-exist and unite we strive.
High and lofty, in the wind flies the black, red and green,
‘Gainst graft, ethnicity and unemployment must we strive and win,
Ethnicity to gather together not ethnicity to disperse I mean,
Is what drives us towards progress, not to lose but to win,
Making us all proud of the black, red and green.
Green scenery, warm beaches at Mombasa, nimble athletes make my heart glow,
Diverse fauna, Serengeti and Mara cause tourists to Kenya draw,
Rivers Athi, Tana, Nairobi, one of these power generates from flow,
We ought ‘gainst the winds of strife to pray, that they cease to blow,
So that God Almighty may help us all to build one Kenya, united we stand.
poem by Jonathan Karanja
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Remember Catherine Oddie
The career her mum had mapped out for her did not work out to plan
For Catherine went to Kenya and married a Maasai man
She adapted to a different sort of culture and a different way of life
And to the noble Robert she's a devoted wife.
A different sort of lifestyle but a good life just the same
Remember Catherine Oddie how can one forget that name
She went from Melbourne to Africa for a brief holiday
But life is unpredictable and it's always been that way.
That a white woman should embrace the Maasai culture is not hard to understand
For the Maasai love their cattle and the Maasai love their land
And the Maasai live in harmony in their souls no room for greed
And the countryside around them supplies them with their need.
She fell in love with Kenya and with the Maasai clan
And with the warrior Robert a kind and gentle man
She embraced a foreign culture and she left her past behind
And in a distant continent her soul mate she did find.
Her holiday in Africa to a new life did lead
And her book on her life with the Maasai makes a memorable read
She adapted to a different lifestyle but a good life just the same
And remember Catherine Oddie who can forget her name.
poem by Francis Duggan
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First Encounter - Imamura Shohei
Imamura Shohei
that love of the orient
shines through his face
Imamura Shohei
our meet marked by
mutual love for the orient
The late Imamura Shohei won the Grand Prix Award for the Cannes Film Festival for the film Narayama Bushiko many years back. The film depicts the strange custom of a Japanese village where old folks were
sent to mountains to die to solve food problems. The most touching scene was that of an old woman waving to her reluctant son to go after he had brought her to the mountains. Imamura was in Malacca in the 80s to film his other film Zegen when we met up. He greeted me like a friend, an outpouring of his love for the orient. Zegen did not make it to the box office but his recognition as one of Japan best directors surivives.
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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We need strong public health institutions to respond to any challenge. We need to deal with critical infrastructure. The reality is that very little money has flowed to communities to help our first responders; to help our hospitals; to help the public health infrastructure.
quote by Robert Menendez
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You know, if you look back in the 1930s, the money went to infrastructure. The bridges, the municipal buildings, the roads, those were all built with stimulus money spent on infrastructure. This stimulus bill has fundamentally gone, started out with a $500 rebate check, remember. That went to buy flat-screen TVs made in China.
quote by Michael Bloomberg
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The Impact Of Poverty On Education
THE IMPACT OF POVERTY ON EDUCATION.
INTRODUCTION
There are so many different tools that have been thought relevant in people’s developmental projects both at individual and societal levels. Education is one of such practical tools. Importantly to note, there are also various meanings that denote the broad term ‘education’. In this essay, however, we are mainly interested in defining formal education since our discussion will dwell much on it. According to Nwomonoh (1998) , formal education is the process of gaining knowledge, attitudes, information and skills during the course of life especially at school.
Though education is said to be so instrumental in human development but also in the revamping of world economies, it is very unfortunate that education systems, world wide, are being held to ransom all because of poverty at both governmental and household levels. According to Thibault (2009) , poverty means the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include lack of access to opportunities like education and employment which aid the escape of poverty.
Problems in our society are interconnected in one way or the other, just like poverty and personal family problems affect a student’s capability to learn. Improving education entails improving the living conditions of students. Having in mind that education is basically responsible for the development of many countries including Malawi, as the back ground suggests, we cannot afford to bypass such a vital element without a mention. Considering also the fact that poverty is one of the forces that come in the way; blocking the success of education, we feel it rational to look at how the two realities, education and poverty, affect each other both positively and negatively. That is also why we are convinced that this topic is worth studying. Our awareness of this source, poverty, and its impact on education will enable us devise some proper measures of intervention with the hope of minimizing the negative impact of poverty on education. This point, in short, explains the purpose of our investigation and why we are so passionate in getting into this research. During the whole discussion we are being guided by two questions thus, ‘does poverty really affect education? And if it does, what points do we have on the positive and negative impacts of poverty on education? ’
METHODOLOGY
The study was basically qualitative in approach because of the nature of the issue that was being addressed. This was the case because the issue of how poverty affects education, both positively and negatively is particularly very difficult to predict the conclusions without penetrating into the core of the issue. For instance, one may unreasonably rush into concluding that poverty affects education negatively only and we cannot even dare to speak of poverty affecting education positively. The study was conducted in three schools namely; Mulunguzi, Masongola and Chirunga Private Secondary schools in Zomba district between 24th April and 3rd May. In this research we used both government and private funded schools to have a more balanced result on how poverty affects formal education in these different institutions. The information required for the study was collected through group interviews of form three students and individual interviews with teachers using semi-structured interview schedules. We opted to use these interviews in the first place because we felt books are more theoretical whereas a field research is practical and it involves real life experiences. Nevertheless, we still used desk research as a supplementary source of information and for clarity in some areas.
RESULTS
Positive impacts of poverty on education
To begin with, poverty encourages one to get educated and of course work hard in class. This is because the problems faced due to poverty are very serious and therefore students who are from poverty stricken families strive to end the problems and one of the best solutions is through education. That is to say, if a person, for instance, due to poverty, is taking just a meal in a day instead of three meals, and again if he/she is sometimes sleeping on an empty stomach, he/she will resort to education bearing in mind that if he/she gets educated they will secure formal employment and eventually be able to make ends meet for themselves as well as fending for their families.
Not only does poverty encourage one to get educated, but also it helped in the introduction of free primary education. In Malawi, for instance, when Bakili Muluzi became president, he introduced free primary education and he had eliminated the requirements for school uniform forthwith (Kadzamira & Rose,2001) . This had increased the access to education dramatically as those pupils who were coming from less privileged families were also given access to this free primary education. It should also be noted that the free primary education system was not only implemented to fulfill an electoral pledge but also bearing in mind that some families were not able to send their children to school due to poverty. Free primary education was there to deal with illiteracy by reducing families’ direct costs of education. Again due to the influx in the number of pupils in primary schools; there was a lack of teachers. Sonani (2002) , testifies that the Ministry of Education re-employed all retired teachers below the age of 65. This also meant that the once retired teachers got back to their source of income which helped them support their families as well as hauling the economy of the country. The implementation of free primary education system in Malawi forced the government to provide infrastructures so as to accommodate the large number of pupils in these schools. Simply put, poverty had led to the introduction of free primary education which means that more children are going to school, and again more teachers are being trained and getting employed and finally the construction of school blocks culminating into infrastructural development, all these branching from poverty.
We may also look at poverty from a positive angle bearing in mind that when a country is poor more funds and donations come into it. These funds and donations are also given to the education sector to build new infrastructures and in the maintenance of already existing ones in the sector. These privileged countries also provide learning materials to schools that are poor as a result students in these less privileged schools perform well in accordance with the amount and quality of the learning materials that they have been provided with. For instance, a United States based non governmental organization known as “Water for People” handed over 44 water toilets they built to Chimwankhunda primary school. The school toilet facilities had been vandalized 11 years ago but because of poverty the school could not renovate them (Gausi,2007) .
In addition, these funds and donations help more people to get educated. This is so because people can use funds as school fees, pocket money and buy stationery. The donations may include library books, chairs and writing materials. These can make a conducive environment for one to learn since there will be enough facilities at the school. For instance, with funding from the “United States Agency for International Development” (USAID) ,3,300 needy Malawian primary school girls are being funded. They are being provided with food, clothing, school supplies and hygienic products like soap and body lotion (Muhaliwa,2005) . Likewise,500 pupils at Katoto primary school in Mzuzu no longer sit on the floors during lessons courtesy of Southern Bottlers Limited and Lions Club of Limbe. Before these funds and donations, pupils used to sit on the floor due to scarcity of desks. These donations improved the pupils’ school attendance in such a way that pupils have started going to school regularly.
In the same line, a needy student can be given a scholarship to go further with his/her education. In this case the scholarship is given to the person just because he/she cannot manage to pay school fees on her own. This in turn benefits the needy person and the community at large. In this situation poverty has assisted in the development of education in an area by beckoning funds and donations from rich countries and organisations.
Further more; in most cases poverty facilitates one’s ambitions to attain formal education. It becomes easier for a poor child to put much of his concentration on education as compared to a rich child. This is because a poverty stricken student will have less destructive materials for entertainment. He/she will also have less or no money to indulge him/herself in activities that require spending a lot of money for instance, drinking beer. Sometimes even if the child can find money he/she can buy basic needs and not just spending it anyhow. Contrast to this a rich child may obtain things like ipods, mp3s, games for entertainment. These things in most cases destruct the concentration of students in their studies. As a result, one’s class performance is negatively affected since most of his/her time is being spent on entertainment.
Negative impacts of poverty on education
Just as a coin has got two sides, a head and a tail, poverty also, apart from having positive impacts on education, it does have negative impacts on the same. We have talked much about the positive face of poverty on education. We shall surely do ourselves injustice if we do not look at the negative part. In spite of the fact that poverty has an impact on education that is worth complimenting, we cannot afford in this discussion to overlook the point that so many students have been forced to leave the corridors of learning institutions due to the same poverty. One of the reasons that force some students leave the learning institutions prematurely is pregnancy, which in most cases, come because of poverty. It is almost common knowledge that a good number of students who come from poor families wish they could be sailing in the same boat with those who come from well to do families as far as luxurious life is concerned. The poor students constantly feel that there is something missing at the core psychologically. With this feeling in their minds, they tend to regard themselves as incomplete and not accepted socially. Consequently, they envy the rich students and squarely want to posses the things that are associated with the rich students. Very unfortunate that the poor students’ parents cannot afford to fulfill their children’s desires like what the rich parents would provide. Because the pull towards recognition is too strong for the poor students to resist, they end up in indulging themselves into prostitution in their search for money. Pity indeed that instead of recreating, as anticipated, their promiscuous behavior sees most of them getting pregnant and for some very unfortunate ones get even HIV and other STIs. From this discussion, commonsense convinces us that this school dropp out due to pregnancy is one of the negative impacts of poverty on education.
Adding more flesh to this discussion, we can also appreciate that hunger has been so instrumental in bringing down the standards of education world wide, in general, and Malawi, in particular. Frankly speaking, there are very few students if not none, who concentrate on their studies on empty stomachs. Food is one of the basic needs that every person is obliged to have if he/she is to survive. It is not surprising, therefore, to see some students performing miserably in class simply because they have not taken enough food or they have taken none altogether. The question of hunger finds its way into the education system because the government has failed to provide adequate food in most of its boarding schools. This is poverty at governmental level. There are also some students who are not boarders but still endure the hostile reality of hunger right in their homes. This is due to poverty at household level. It is sad that poverty, both at governmental and household level, has helped in engineering the deteriorating of education standards in Malawi.
Bearing in mind that it is only the eagle that can tell us the real whisper of a cloud, we visited Masongola Secondary school with the hope of getting first hand information from the students and their teachers since they are the ones who mostly benefit or get destructed by poverty. The Masongola secondary school students and their teacher, Mr. Enock Abraham, testified to us during an interview that government’s inability to provide extra food, apart from the usual beans that the institution offers, has seen many students developing ulcers. It would sound bizarre to reason that one can attend classes whilst he/she is on a hospital bed battling with ulcers. The Masongola students further testified that most poor students who have ulcers just bow down out of the race of learning because they cannot afford to buy extra food whenever the institution is serving the students beans.
This pitiful development goes beyond the boundaries of Masongola secondary school. Mulunguzi secondary school as Mr……the head teacher at the institution testifies, has not been spared from the scourge of school dropp outs simply because the school has not been able to provide extra or adequate food to students who cannot take what their friends take on health grounds. Needless to say this leaves the education standards in Malawi vacillating. It is a pity that though we have wrestled with this question of poverty a dozen times, we have not been successful in the battle. At one point in time, the government attempted to minimize the chances of school dropout in primary schools through its provision of porridge to pupils in the junior section. This attempt was in itself a good gesture but the government has failed to implement the initiative further in other schools that up to now have not benefited from the program.
It may not sound an exaggeration if we may say poverty has also forced a good number of students to give up their hopes of getting educated simply because they find it so difficult traveling to and from their respective schools. Lack of transport means, in short, has pushed them well towards the blink of despair as far as attaining formal education is concerned. This point speaks for itself how poverty can sometimes work on the education’s disadvantage.
As we go further with this discussion, we also appreciate the fact that the problem that mostly hinders a student’s success is inadequate resources that include; few teachers and learning materials. It must be highlighted that these problems are not only in developing countries but they may also find their way in reasonably developed countries like South Africa. In a developing country like Malawi, the education system encounters these problems because of the government’s failure to look into problems of infrastructure, capacity and availability of teaching and learning materials (Nkawike,2005) . The Muluzi government did a little if any; in as far as infrastructure is concerned. Lack of school blocks facilitated by a large number of pupils due to the introduction of the free primary education in 1994, forced pupils to have lessons under trees. In 2003, for example, lack of school blocks resulted in a tragedy at Nkomachi in Lilongwe when a tree fell onto an outdoor class, resulting in injury and deaths of pupils (Mvula & Chanika,2004) . This problem of learning materials continues till date, in all levels of the education system. According to Abraham (2009) , the school has always had shortage of learning blocks to an extent that the Physical Science and Biology laboratories are used as classrooms. There is also great shortage of books in all departments, and some departments like the technical department needs new equipment and current books which are very expensive. With this unfortunate situation we cannot anticipate good performance from Masongola secondary school.
In order to deal with these issues, the Muluzi government thought it wise to disregard the provision of learning materials in schools. Instead the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) pass mark was reduced to ensure the success of students in their examinations. Even the director of Basic Education, Nelson Kaperemera admitted that funds intended for learning materials were servicing the debts of government at the expense of improving quality education. Instead of reducing the pass mark, the government and other stake holders should strive to improve quality of education, improve teacher salaries, and provide adequate materials and train teachers properly (Malawi News,2006) .
In developing countries like Malawi, the schools are understaffed (teaching personnel) and they tend to be handling a large number of students for long hours. Furthermore, the teachers are subjected to meager salaries, which are even made late. The government does not seem to have the welfare of teachers at heart, for instance the education Manager for Phalombe, Enoch Ali says the district is facing a dire shortage of teachers, a situation that is contributing to low education standards. The teacher pupil ratio in Phalombe is 1: 120, whilst the recommended ratio is 1: 60 (The Nation,2006) . Due to low pay teachers resort to organizing part time classes, which demand an extra amount of money on top of the normal fees. These changes clearly affect those students who come from very poor families, as they do not receive adequate studies because of lack of money.
This does not only occur in secondary schools, but it also happens in universities. As the academic staff of the Universities go on strike because of the government’s reluctance to increase their salaries. One considers how this is supposed to retain staff in the University. As a result lecturers spend more time doing consultancies; instead of preparing lectures and doing University mandated research. If we are serious about fighting poverty, formal education is the hub of ideas to fight these problems by improving its standards (Kapasula,2008) .
Child labour is one of the major problems that contribute to school dropp out. The majority of child labour victims are children who are living in poverty. This is so because they lack basic needs, for this reason they are forced even against their will to do any kind of work in order to gain financial wealth. This, therefore, affects school attendance. Evidence of school dropp out due to child labour is found in central region where most children are being employed in estates. This region has high tobacco production. Since this crop demands a lot of work, children are at high demand because they do not claim high wages compared to adults. Research, therefore, showed that the percentage of children attending schools is lower compared to that of northern and southern region (Nyirongo,2004) . We have the case of two brothers aged between 12 and 15 who were forced to work at a tobacco farm at Mpherembe in Kasungu district, where they were receiving 150 kwacha a day due to poverty (Namangale,2005) . We can see that child labour has a great impact on education because through it, a lot of children are being deprived of their right to education as they spend most of their time working.
In addition to that, Chirwa (2003) found out that child labour is also taking place in people’s houses. In this case children are forced to dropp out of school either by parents or on their own, to work in neighbouring homes. Here one of the victims is a 12 year old girl Elizabeth Chalimba, who left school when she was in standard six to work as a nanny in order to support her siblings. Children from low income families are at risk because though school is their only hope for a better future, they dropp out because their parents are failing to provide them with basic needs. Apart from child labour, psychological problems due to poverty is also another cause of school dropp outs. Research shows that the impact of poverty is greater on children as opposed to adults. Firstly, the problem arises due to the environment in which these children are raised. These environments being impoverished, they are intellectually unstimulating, and lack of stimulation results in impaired intellectual development of a child. This in turn contributes to failure in class which can later on lead to school dropp out.
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poem by Innocent Masina Nkhonyo
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