Malawi president wants tough action taken against exam leakers
The Malawian president wants the culprits to be found and disciplined within a week.
RUSTENBURG, November 5 (ANA) – Education Minister Agnes Nyalonje and the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) have one week to identify and discipline the people who leaked secondary school exam papers, President Lazarus Chakwera said on Thursday.
In a televised national address, Chakwera gave MANEB until the end of November to remove its top management team and replace it with a new team that would conduct the most credible exams ever seen in Malawi.
Secondary school exams in the south-eastern African country were cancelled on Wednesday following rampant leaking of question papers that went viral on social media platforms.
Nyalonje on Wednesday said the fresh exams were planned for March 9 next year at a cost of 4.5 billion kwacha (about US$5.8 million)
Chakwera said the country could not afford to wait for five months for the exams to be conducted and gave the examinations board until the end of January next year to get a new set of exams ready.
“A country that just witnessed the best election in history, being conducted in record time, cannot be expected to tolerate having to wait five months for school exams to be administered,” he said.
The opposition leader in parliament, Kondwani Nankhumwa, has called on Chakwera to set up a commission of inquiry into the leak.
“Such a commission of inquiry must comprise education experts and other relevant members drawn from the public and private sectors and not politicians,” he said in a statement.
He described the leak as a huge setback on education development in Malawi and a psychological blow for those learners who worked extremely hard, amid Covid-19 challenges, to prepare for these examinations.
“This is a retrogressive episode in our collective quest to improve education standards in the country,” he said.
“I am aware that when MANEB is formulating examinations, they always have at least three sets of papers for the same subject to use in case of any eventuality. In that case, there would be no need for MANEB to wait for four months before they administer fresh examinations because they obviously have already formulated papers.”
Meanwhile, news website Malawi24 reported on Thursday that parents of the Form 4 learners have demanded that Nyalonje and Malawi National Examinations Board boss Gerald Chiunda be fired due to the cancellation of exams.
According to local media reports, some learners in the capital Lilongwe blocked roads in some parts of the city on Wednesday in protest against the cancellation of the exams.
Privately owned radio station Zodiak Broadcasting Station reported on Wednesday that about 38 learners were arrested in Kasungu, central Malawi, on Tuesday, after they were allegedly found in possession of leaked electronic examination papers. They were released on bail.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher