Eighteen days after the Ministry of Education and the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) cancelled this year’s Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination, students now have direction as to what happens next. On Sunday 22nd November the Ministry of Education released guidelines for secondary schools to follow in preparing for the re-take of the exams. There are still a few grey areas that need clarification, but the guidelines are a welcome action in moving forward. Most importantly, there are lessons to be learned from this national fiasco. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes that led to the mess, or we will risk jeopardizing the future of the education system and the lives of many young Malawians.
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| Photo credit: Steve Sharra |
The press release from the Ministry states that Form 4 students whose exams were cancelled are expected to report back to school on Monday 28th December. This applies to both public and private schools. No further fees shall be paid, as fees for the third term had not yet been exhausted when the examination was cancelled on 4th November. The release further states that government will bear the cost of both examination fees as well as practical examinations. The rerun of the MSCE exam shall be completed by the end of January, 2021, therefore newly selected Form 1 students will be expected to report to school on 1st February 2021. The rest of the continuing students, Forms 2 to 4, are expected back on campus on 5th January, 2021.
After
schools were closed in March due to the covid pandemic, the new MSCE exams
calendar was from 27th October to 20th November. Massive and
widespread leakages and cheating unraveled days after the exams commenced. Papers
were shared on social media platforms ahead of their scheduled time. That made
it impossible to determine who might have had advance access to the papers and
who might not, let alone what paper would leak next. Continuing with the rest
of the exams became an untenable position.
Not all 150,000
students would have accessed the papers before sitting them, and the decision
to cancel the exam was most painful for those students who did not participate
in the cheating. But it was the entire examination and the country’s national
education system that were at stake, hence the decision to cancel the exam and
do it all over again.
There have
been a few questions and observations that have been asked or raised on various
social media forums. Will the government absorb all the exam-related costs for
private schools as well? Does this mean Form 4 teachers will not enjoy their
New Year’s holiday? With students returning to school and the retake of MSCE
commencing a few days later, will schools and students have adequate
preparation? As there are some 35 or so days to the 28th of
December, what should schools and students be doing in the meantime?
These are
all valid questions, but as others have observed, we are dealing with an
unprecedented situation which demands unprecedented solutions. After more than two
weeks of silence from the Ministry since the cancellation, teachers, parents
and students were becoming anxious as it was not clear what the way forward
was. Unscrupulous elements were beginning to fill the void and taking advantage
of desperate students.
The Ministry
will need to further clarify some issues, but it is very commendable that they
have taken the bold decision to own up and take responsibility for the mess. The
government’s decision to cover all the costs related to the exams ensures that
innocent students are not doubly penalized by paying more fees. Educational policies
are meant to be implemented across the system, for both public and private
schools. However private schools in Malawi have their own set of dynamics that
may require policies and guidelines to be modified to suit particular contexts.
For example,
some private schools have already recalled their students as we speak. No wise
Form 4 teacher can afford to take it easy and wait until the 28th of
December. Recalling students back to school before the 28th December
entails costs that fall outside the government’s arrangement. Of concern here
is the issue of inequality. Some students will have the means to continue
preparing for the examinations between now and 28th December, while
many students will not. Schools will need to consult with parents and students
and find mutually agreeable ways of utilizing the time between now and the end
of December.
When schools
re-opened on 7th September after the covid-19 closure, there wasn’t
much time for students to prepare for the exams which were scheduled to start
on 27th October. Many students, especially the less privileged ones,
did not have the structures and facilities to allow them to continue learning
while they were at home. Many of them felt unprepared when 27th
October arrived. Unfortunately, there is little to suggest that they will utilize
the next 36 days in a better way. It will take the foresight of school leaders,
the dedication of teachers and the commitment of parents to plan ways of
keeping students engaged with their school work as they await the re-take of
the MSCE.
Moving forward,
there are important lessons to be learned from what has happened. Key to
learning these lessons will be the findings from the various investigations
that were announced by MANEB itself, the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the
Ministry of Education. If it was not apparent before this crisis, national
examinations are an integral part of the education system and are of national interest.
The public has a big stake in the examinations. MANEB is a public institution
and runs on taxpayer money. Thus the Ministry of Education must be accountable
to the people of Malawi, and they know this.
The MSCE is
a high stakes examination. The MSCE can open or shut a door to one’s future. With
a tertiary enrollment of 0.8 percent, Malawi ranks at the bottom of global
league tables for access to further education. As Professor Paul Tiyambe Zeleza
has pointed out, this is a national scandal that needs urgent attention.
The problem
is systemic because Malawi’s education sector loses students right from the
pre-school level where only one in three children has access to early childhood
education. One out of four children is out of school at the primary level, and
four out of five youths are out of school at the secondary school level,
according to the 2018 national population and housing census. Thus it is the
entire pipeline that has a huge access problem, leading to the 0.8 percent
tertiary enrollment rate.
Examinations
determine the futures of millions of young people and their families. National examinations
also shape the international image of a country’s education system. There are
jobs, tertiary education and other career paths awaiting students in their
future. These depend a great deal on the integrity of national examinations.
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| Credit: Steve Sharra |
Beginning around
2011/12 MANEB engaged an extra gear in how they approached and prepared for
national examinations. They crisscrossed the country engaging stakeholders,
including communities, parents, the media and students themselves. This helped key
stakeholders take ownership of the process to safeguard the security and integrity
of national examinations. This did a lot to minimize incidences of leakages and
cheating. When they happened, MANEB was able to move, identify the issue and
isolate it, and address it with the relevant processes. The rest of the
examinations were able to continue.
Something happened
with the 2020 MSCE examinations. It is possible that covid-19 made it
impossible for MANEB to do its usual stakeholder consultations and community sensitization
of everyone’s role in ensuring the security and integrity of the examinations. As my colleague Dr. Limbani Nsapato observed, there is also the possibility that there were oversight
slippages during the months when government parastatals, which include MANEB,
went without Boards of Governors as we transitioned from the previous
government to the current one. Only the investigations will help us know for
sure.
It is
therefore imperative that the investigations are carried out and completed, and
that the reports are released, and utilized for the retake of the MSCE, and for
future examinations. Failure to learn from this will create an existential crisis
for the future of MANEB and the country’s educational system.
