Governance in Malawi can best be considered in terms of the recent decentralization efforts. The issue of
decentralisation has featured prominently in all contemporary discourse on educational planning and management
more particularly so for the developing countries. In fact, the issue of central control versus regional autonomy
is not new to the field of public administration. In governance systems, different functions can be allocated in
different ways to different levels for different reasons. This is equally true with the ways in which education systems
are governed and managed. In the recent pressure to reduce public spending and increase efficiency in the use of
resources, decentralisation has become a reality in many countries, even in those that are considered highly centralized.
When Cabinet approved the National Decentralisation Policy in 1998, one of the main objectives was to create a
democratic environment and institutions in Malawi for governance and development, at the local level which facilitate
the participation of the grassroots in decision making. Currently, it is not known as to whether there is genuine
decentralization in Malawi. Several questions however still remain unanswered, some of which are the following: