‘Let’s finish unbundling Unima and move on’

On September 8 2020, Vice President Saulos Chilima declared: “Let’s finish unbundling Unima (University of Malawi) and move on”.

This unbundling process led to the creation of three universities. Chancellor College became the new Unima, College of Medicine and Kamuzu College of Nursing merged into Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) while the Polytechnic became Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS). The three new universities increased the number of public universities to five. The others being Mzuzu University (Mzuni) and Malawi University of Science and Technology (Must).

Which begs the question: Why Unima unbundled? Or what would come out of unbundling?

Many reasons were advanced. Long and short, most of them emerged from the feeling that the limit in autonomy of Unima was stifling implementation of policies on innovation on other ways of being effective and efficient. This limited autonomy of Unima seemed to result in underutilization of the increase in capacity within the university.

I for one admired the optimism that came with the unbundling of the ‘octopus’ that was Unima. Suffice to mention that the process gave the impression that immediately the three constituent colleges were delinked and became separate institutions, voila, all or most problems that bedeviling Unima would be history. Truth be told. They would not. Actually before unbundling would start to bring about the envisioned solutions, it would first create more of its own problems and pile more pressure on the small resource envelope. That is what we are seeing now.

The astronomical increase in the number of needy public university students in the 2022 academic year is one of them. Malawi learnt this week through the press that 2 658 students in public universities are in need. They need tuition and upkeep money. They are at risk of being withdrawn from studies.

According to a Luanar students representative, Tracizio Kalaundi, 316 students at Bunda Campus in Lilongwe are on the verge of being withdrawn from college due to lack of fees and upkeep. A KUHeS representative Pascal Chipewa said 91 students have had their places reserved due to lack of fees and will return to school next year. And at least 26 may lose places at Mubas. Unima Students union president Charles Dokera said 134 students do not have resources and 31 have already been withdrawn from university. He called for urgent need to deal with the dire situation. 

At Mzuni 560 students excluded incoming first year students also require urgent help. On the other hand, 1 500 Must students may not return to school when they reopen, according to James Kalawa, the university students’ union’s representative. Mzuni and Must seem to have the largest number of needy students (at least from the figures the students’ representatives gave).

The 2 658 needy students are additional to the over 18 669 students who the Higher Education Students Loans Grant Board (Heslgb) provisionally approved to receive loans in the 2022 academic year.

My understanding of Chilima’s ‘Let’s finish unbundling Unima (University of Malawi) and move on” statement is that the parent wanted to walk one step at a time. And tackle issues as they come. Which it did by officially delinking the colleges on May 4 2021. In my view the loving and caring parent who, in the first place, allowed the child to break away from his siblings but still has to breast feed will not abandon the toddler now. 

But I don’t think taking in more students but not being able to support them is really what government and proponents of the unbundling of Unima envisioned about the delinked institutions. They envisioned that the policies on innovation in the autonomous institutions would wean them from their mothers’ breast milk. Maybe that is yet to come.

For now having finished unbundling, government should deal with its consequences.