BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Malawi President Peter Mutharika has sent a strong message to the public that he is no longer interested in addressing the closure of public universities by avoiding the saga in his address on matters of national interest on Monday evening.

Mzuzu University and Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) were recently indefinitely closed due to withdraw of labour by the employees and shortage of water respectively.

Malawi Polytechnic students are also languishing at home as the college keeps on changing opening dates pending for thorough conclusion of the fees hike standoff.

However, as the public was expecting the president to address the issue considering that higher education is a pillar for social and economic development of the country, Mutharika completely avoided the matter in his entire national address.

While speaking on education, the president just centred on challenges facing primary schools and the measures the government has put in place to curb the problems.

“Since Malawi introduced the policy of expansion of access to education, the Education Sectorhas been facing a number of challenges. These include insufficient teaching and learning materials, inadequate school blocks, shortage of qualified teaching personnel. This as you are aware, is a manifestation of many years of poor investment in the sector,” said Mutharika.

“I am however pleased to inform you my fellow Malawians that my Government has put in place short and long term measures to improve the quality of Education in the country. These measures include the following: Approval of the first ever National Education Policy for a systematic implementation of our plans at all levels, rolling out the National Reading Programme and distribution of standard 1 and 2 text books to all primary schools since September 2016. Government is now training Primary School Advisors, supervisors and Inspectors in monitoring of the programme,” he added.

Mutharika also said that the government has commenced the expansion of infrastructure in Mzuzu University, The Polytechnic and Chancellor College; and in the Technical Colleges of Lilongwe, Salima, Soche and Nasawa.

He also acknowledged the improvement made in payment of teachers’ salaries.

“I am further pleased to inform the nation that there has been tremendous improvement in the payment of teachers’ salaries following the decentralization of management of payrolls to the education divisions. As a result of this reform, teachers are now able to get their salaries in time.”

Mutharika’s failure to tackle the academic matter in the national address is in tandem with his earlier stand that he is not responsible for the challenges facing the public colleges and that the colleges’ authorities must devise ways of solving the problems.

“I know that some people are eager to point fingers at the head of state and Chancellor for every problem that arises in Universities. I am the ultimate authority and I don’t mind.

“But we must remember the principles of good governance. The governance of every university is done by the council and its management. We have empowered them by law to govern the universities on behalf of the government. And I do not expect everything to come to me. I expect the council and management to do what is required of them,” said Mutharika.