Lilongwe-(MaraviPost). The country’s Citizen Alliance (CA), a coalition of citizens and civil society group has called President Peter Mutharika to decisively act on scholarship crisis in public universities and colleges as 300 students particularly from the Malawi Polytechnic are reportedly withdrawn from the college due to financial constraints.
The call comes barely a few after The Malawi Polytechnic Student Union held a fundraising dinner over the weekend aimed at soliciting funds for the needy students who are reportedly withdrawn from the college due to economic challenges.
Addressing the news conference on Wednesday, April 27 in the capital Lilongwe, Citizen Alliance has questioned President Mutharika silence on the crisis as him being chancellor of the university of Malawi (Unima).
The grouping has also quarreled on how Student Loan Board was approving loans to the needy arguing that undeserving students were the ones benefiting leaving unprivileged with nothing tendering them withdrawing from the public institutions.
The Maravi Post caught up with Edward Chileka-Banda, CA’s Chairperson who called upon President Mutharika to quickly intervene, fully guide and support the process of bailing out the needy students for them to complete their education.
Chileka observed that Malawi being a party to the UN-led global development framework on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which include an Education Goal (SDG 4) is supposed to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all.
“We commend the Malawi Polytechnic for setting the pace of raising funds to cater for their fellow needy students. This though takes time to implement especially when organising, it must be also extended to all citizens of good will particular the President Mutharika who is a chancellor of unima to handle the matter with urgency.
“We want recapitalization of the student loan board to be objective with public funds disbursement that only deserving students are priotized as what we see students from well to do families are the ones benefiting. This is unacceptable in our time as these funds are from hard earned tax-payers money.
“The call should also extended to all citizens of this country including companies, business captain, politicians, corporate world to come in with little something in bailing out these deserving students who are unable to continue their studies due to economic challenges”, urges Chileka Banda.
Citizen Alliances is a coalition of citizens and civil society groups established to promote active citizen participation in governance and development process.
Currently, President Peter Mutharika is facing daunting task of numerous calls from opposition political parties for his resignation over failure to fix the ailing economy which is characterized by high infraction rates, skyrocketing of goods and services, food shortage, inadequate of drugs and medical equipment in public hospitals.
