By George Bulombola
Mzuzu, Mana: Ministry of Education has described the just finished Malawi Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations’ administration from 13 to 15 July 2022 as a success with very high turnout of candidates and low incidents of malpractices.
This was disclosed Friday at Chikangawa Primary School in Mzimba North by Minister of Education, Agnes NyaLonje where she wound up her monitoring exercise of the examinations in the northern region.
NyaLonje said generally, all processes starting with preparation, management, orientation of supervisors and the actual administration were handled with integrity and professionalism.
“The success is attributed to various stakeholders such as Management and Staff of Malawi National Examination Board (Maneb), teachers, Malawi Defence Force, media, Malawi Police Service, members of the general public, teachers, supervisors and the candidates themselves,” said NyaLonje.
She said the successful administration of the examinations will go a long way for her ministry in reclaiming public trust that examinations can be administered without any malpractices and commended members of the general public for raising alerts on any suspicious malpractice that could impact on the exercise.
“From what I have observed in the examination rooms, most of the candidates seemed to be confident and enthusiastic. This means that they were well prepared for the examinations,” she said.
Commenting on the decrease of candidates from 281,329 in 2021 to 266, 639, NyaLonje attributed to Cyclone Ana which led to suspension of classes in some parts of the country and that some learners who supposed to be in the examination class might have been lost along the way.
“Some of them dropped out of schools after being impregnated during the time when the classes were suspended while others had no interest to return to school after reopening,” said NyaLonje.
She said however her ministry with its stakeholder will analyses the causes of the drop down of the candidates and develop viable interventions to avoid similar situations in future.
According to supervisor at Chikangawa Cluster Centre, Bester Chisi, there were no cases of malpractices at the center and commended Maneb and Ministry of Educations for their guidance throughout the administration of the examinations.
One of the candidates at the center, Martha Tembo said she was optimistic that she will make it to Mzimba Secondary School, a school which she described as her best secondary school.
