Standard Bank donated K4m to the National Reading Program (NRP) to be used for printing 55,200 copies of supplementary boks to be distributed to 176 primary schools in six districts.

Standard Bank Chief Financial Officer Temwani Simwaka said the donation was a collaboration with the Ministry of Education to provide quality education and impact literacy levels among primary school learners. She expressed that supporting education is key to ensuring that the bank has impact in the community, therefore contributing to growth and development of the society.

NRP is an initiative that was developed by the government in 2015 in an attempt to operationalise the National Reading Strategy. Meanwhile, the education sector has seen the Malawi Parliament approving the borrowing almost K70.2 billion from the International Development Association (IDA) to finance Equity and Quality and Learning to Secondary Project. Minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamvekha said the objective of the program (Bill 14 of 2019) is to improve quality of science and mathematics institutions in community day secondary schools (CDSS) and increase access to secondary education in remote areas.