With Richard Kayenda
The last time I checked on the list of top universities in the world, not any university or college from Malawi found its space in top 40. This gave me the impression that what we pride on as a university or college here in Malawi; be it public or private, does not fully qualify to be called a tertiary institution as per international qualification indicators.
2021 Best Global Universities in Africa
Few days ago, the nation has been fed to nostalgic news that an examination paper, meant for the first-year students at Mzuzu University, had leaked from where I would call a strong room. Some of the students, who were meant to sit for this exam, already accessed it few hours before the actual duration.
When it was discovered that the paper found its way out of the locked office, a communication was issued that the exam had been called off. Evidently, an investigation to establish how the paper got leaked has now been instituted. But it is very predicable that such a search will not yield any results at the end of the day. It will be a story as usual!
Not that the intended culprit cannot be traced and tied down, but because the demon behind this sin is larger than life. What happens in our universities and colleges, as far as quality control of academic services are concerned, leaves a lot to be desired as to whether the academic staff are really finely qualified gurus or just a bunch of rotten bananas heaped together.
I mean, how can an exam get leaked? The sense that this news can make is too little to be true. Most of the times, cases of this nature obviously stem from the fact that the composer of the exam wanted to use it as a bait to hook a girl candidate and in the process the student decided to share the opportunity with her roommates and desk mates. And the end result is what the nation read about in the tabloids.
Such disturbing news: coupled with inadequacy of teaching and learning resources in the so-called varsities, is what is heavily discrediting the reputation and status of university education in Malawi on the international scene.
We have had cases where an international employer or higher learning institution is doubting to enroll a graduate trained in Malawi evidently because the employer does not trust the quality of our education. Or worse still, a Malawian company preferring to employ an expatriate to a locally trained technocrat. And then, when you recall the examination leakage malaise, you end up concluding that the employment criterion is really justified.
The vomitus of leaked exam, missing grades, missing names of students who paid tuition fees in full or not and what not; in the Malawi universities and colleges, is just too insufferable and yet people behind the fiasco are those with enviable academic accolades.
Richard Kayenda
That aside, there is then the demon of lecturers sleeping with girl students in exchange for grades. Incidents are there when a lecturer punishes a girl student by failing her an exam simply because the latter turned down the former’s love advances. For the lecturer to show off that he stands in the girl’s way to her bachelor’s degree or diploma, he does everything till the girl falls a prey for him.
As if that is not demonic enough, even boy students who seem to be advancing for the same girl student with a particular lecturer, may become victim of a circumstance by being punished academically if only seen around the girl whom a particular lecturer salivates for. Shame!
This too has been a hot topic of discussion in the tertiary institutions. I remember how this bomb exploded at Mzuzu University last year that some lecturers were even threatening girl students to offer them sexual services if they were to pass their exams. The matter was so hot in the public domain that one thought that a culprit would be named and shamed. However, the issue just flew into the thin air, and to date nobody knows where it ended. The perpetrators of the vice are usually at the forefront suppressing it and shielding one another at the same time.
And such nauseating occasions are degrading the quality of our tertiary education systems even more. A deserving student gets deprived of better results owing to the fact that there are issues between him or her and someone who thinks he is the one to determine the future of the student. How shameful!
The Big-Mouthed a weekly column by Maravi Post Reporter based in in Mzuzu, Richard Kayenda