President Peter Muntharika is being said to have approved recommendations stakeholders made to the ongoing Public Service Reforms Program by abolishing Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) examinations and also stop printing of Primary School Leaving Certificate (PSLCE) in a bid to cut costs incurred when conducting such services.
This comes barely two days after the same government told the general public that would no longer sponsor students into public universities but rather needy learners will be getting loans from the loan body which was instituted by Malawi Parliament to carry such tasks effective 2015/2016 academic year.
Constance Kilimo, Public Service Reforms Management Unit’s Spokesperson is being quoted in the local press that such decision was part of the recommendation made to 46 government departments and agencies which the communication has been already sent to the concerned parastatals.
Kilimo said the implementation of such reforms starts from October 1, 2015 that there will be quarterly meetings with management and the board to track progress.
Kilimo said Malawi National Examination Board (Maneb) was not spared from the reforms calling pupils and guardians to request documents on the PSLCE transcript from the board.
“Primary school pupils will still be writing Maneb examinations at the end of the circle in standard eight and get the PSLCE’s transcript as printing of the certificate has been stopped which will see Maneb saving MK20 million while abolishing administering JCE exams MK2 billion will also be saved. The JCE exams abolishment was a recommendation made by Manebo itself that the paper has lost value and it’s not in high demand by employers”, said Kilimo.
But education expert, Dr Steven Sharra wondered if such decision was arrived based on stakeholders recommendations saying certificates serve the purpose of indicating how much education a person has accumulated for other purposes not necessarily related to employment.
Sharra said it was a worrisome situation that these education reforms will witness most people to have no single document to show that they ever attended school.
“It’s understandable that these changes have to be made as the country is in economic crisis, but there is a need to proceed carefully not always taking any recommendation on board”, warns Steve Sharra.
On his Facebook wall Steve Sharra write “I’d like to know if they have considered the potential unintended consequences. We have 900,000 students entering Standard 1 and after 8 years only 90,000 of these enter Form 1. The message being potentially sent here is that education up to Form 3 is not that important. We are not Finland where there are no exams until secondary school, but they have almost zero dropouts”.
