About Blantyre International University

Blantyre International University was started by one man in January, 2008 on the second floor of an office building in Blantyre, Malawi. That first semester, there were a mere 30 students. Now, just three years later, the student population is over 650.

Blantyre International University's current location

With the increased enrollment came the need to change location, and the school found a vacant building on the outskirts of the center of town. The building is not a full campus; there are no playing fields, no dormitories, no student center. It looks more like a small, old high school. 

The University has limited facilities – old chalkboards, not enough chairs and desks, limited working Internet for both students and staff, no textbooks for individual students, and a library with one small wall of bookshelves with books. 

Lecture hall before class

 

The students must share the recommended textbook for each class. Sometimes the university library has two copies, but more often there is only one. If a student takes out a book and doesn’t return it on time, his or her classmates are at a disadvantage for not being able to access that book for weeks. For some classes, a single text may be shared among eight students; however, for large classes, one textbook in the library may need to be shared among 200  students.

Entrance to the library

So why start a new university with such limited facilities? The answer to that question lies in the Malawian higher education system and number of students. In Malawi each year, approximately 100,000 high school students take the examination for college entrance. Half of those students pass the exam. Thus, 50,000 students look to enter university. Because of the limited number of universities in Malawi and the lack of space at those universities, only about 3,000 of the 50,000 eligible students are able to enter universities in Malawi each year. Blantyre International University was started to provide more students the opportunity to receive a college education.

Blantyre International University students

Blantyre International University wants to continue its growth by moving to a new campus and reaching its ideal student population of 5,000 within the next few years. Even with such growth, the problem of lack of textbooks will still exist. Thus, the idea of Books for Blantyre came out of a need to provide students access to textbooks.

Blantyre International University Faculty