Promoting library education and training: the role of the Malawi Library Association

Abstract

This article provides an account of how the Malawi Library Association (MALA) and its small band of graduate professional librarians (numbering no more than ten in 2005) have provided training at non-graduate certificate level for over 600 Malawians since 1979. MALA was founded in 1976 and inaugurated in 1977. Professional education and training has always been one of its main objectives, and unlike practitioners in most other countries in recent decades, senior librarians designed the certificate curriculum and did the actual teaching. Mzuzu University in the north of Malawi has recently introduced a Diploma in Library and Information Science and a BSc in Information and Communication Technology, the latter being the highest level qualification in the information field in Malawi at present.

Innovation Vol. 31 2005: 50-56