Experts fear for MSCE results disaster

Education experts have warned that this year’s tight Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations timetable is a recipe for disastrous results.

Meanwhile, Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) insiders  have said the board designed the 18-day timetable—running from June 17 to July 10 2015—based on budget constraints as longer period meant paying more for invigilators. They also said security was the other determining factor.

But one of the country’s educationists, Dr Steve Sharra who is lecturing at University of Botswana, has warned that the clumsy timetable may affect the performance of the candidates and the results of the entire examinations.

In the same vein, Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) national coordinator Benedicto Kondowe dismissed security as a valid reasoning for compressing the timetable.

“MSCE is a high-stakes examination with life-long consequences. Students need to be given enough time to rest their minds and bodies and recharge mentally before taking the next paper.

“So, the issue of the economy, which we know already affects the education sector severely, is further eroding the system. This development is unhelpful,” said Sharra.

He said it is becoming obvious that government’s financial woes are crippling the country.

Sharra said: “This can potentially affect the performance of students who could have otherwise done better. The ideal number of subjects to be taken in a day is two.”

Kondowe, who is a member of Maneb’s national task force on security and management of examinations, said no issue on security arose at their meetings in relation to squeezing the timetable.

“It is all about monetary considerations. They even shorten marking periods and this may have negative impact on results.

“Students needed adequate time. It is not fair putting unnecessary pressure on them. The maximum subjects students can take is two papers a day, that is standard,” said Kondowe.

He said there was a need as a country to take examinations as a national agenda, adding that Maneb did not get what it asked for in this year’s budget.

He said from about K3 billion it asked for in the 2015/16 financial year, Maneb was only allocated about K1 billion.

Candidates have been taking up to three subjects in a day, running from 8am to 4.30pm.

In a response to a questionnaire, Maneb spokesperson Simeon Maganga said the timetable was designed bearing in mind two main factors—time and security.

“Remember that Maneb borrows personnel from the Ministry of Education (teachers) and Malawi Police Service to assist in this exercise,” said Maganga.

“Keeping such personnel for a long time would not only cripple services in their work stations but also incur unnecessarily high costs in allowances,” he said.

Maganga said passing MSCE examinations being what many students want to achieve, some candidate would try to defeat the security system to access the papers before time, so administering the examinations in a shortest possible time acts as a security measure.

He also said administering the MSCE examinations, for example, one subject per day, could translate into spreading the examinations for utmost two months, which could take up to August.

Maganga said: “This means delaying marking and release of results. This could negatively affect not only candidates wishing to repeat Form Four as an academic year starts in September, but could also affect Maneb’s preparations for the following year’s examinations.”

Teachers and candidates interviewed randomly in Blantyre and Zomba last week complained that some candidates travel long distances to examination centres; hence, it was not fair not to consider them on time they are expected to prepare for the next day’s paper.

One Chichiri Secondary School candidate said: “This is not an enabling environment for us to perform well, rather it is a punishment. It has not been the case previously. Our friends two years ago were taking close to a month for the same examinations.”n