Malawi needs a class-based quota system
I did not choose to be a Presbyterian, but I don’t regret to have been born, raised and well-educated in the shadows of the Livingstonia Synod.
The Synod, let’s face it, is more than just a medium of metaphysical powers. It is one public institution that was foremost in providing critical social services. Where, if not for Livingstonia Synod’s Chilanga Primary School in Kasungu, would Hastings Kamuzu Banda have tasted education as early as 1915 under the tutelage of Collen Young, a great teacher?
That is why, when the Synod—just like the Catholic Bishops—goes to town on government’s particular public policy position, I just find it right and proper.
This, however, does not mean I agree with every position the synod takes. One of the policy issues which the Synod has been relentless in fighting, we all know, is the quota system in admitting students to public universities.
When Bingu wa Mutharika’s government introduced the system in 2010, the synod took a decisive stand against it arguing, “it is discriminatory to the people of the North” and, since then, they have not changed.
In fact, just last week, the synod’s secretary general, Levi Nyondo—the beloved uncle I admire because he is not afraid of his own thoughts—reiterated the stand without a word minced.
The synod, due to its stand, has won itself a congress of critics. In fact, it has been called all sorts of disparaging names just for taking this stand. Did we really expect that everybody, in this season of freedom of expression, to just nod heads in agreement?
But, as an educationist who, using history, has analysed trends of university selection, here is my take: the positions of both the Synod and its critics, do not spring from the real problem biting access to public university today rather their tumultuous historical experiences. The data is there, for those who wish to see.
The challenge with access to public universities today is not that a particular region is dominating in representation.
Rather, students who learn in better schools—mission schools, high schools, expensive private schools and public conventional schools—are the ones enjoying unlimited access to public universities because their learning environment gives them supreme advantage over the majority learning in resource-poor shanty private schools and community day secondary schools (CDSSs).
The tragedy of it all is that those that go to better schools are mostly sons and daughters of better-off and well-to-do families. On the other hand, those that end up at resource-poor schools are sons and daughters of the poor and struggling families.
In other words, the challenge of access to public universities in Malawi is more a question of class than districtism or regionalism.
Unfortunately, the quota system as it is being implemented currently, is more a response to districtism that the question of class.
I am told they, in the first place, reserve 10 spaces for each district; then the rest is again shared according to, among others, a particular district’s population density, issues of gender, disability and all that!
What fundamentally this means is that disadvantaged students from resource-poor schools like Kameme CDSS in Chitipa, with an average of 21 points are left to compete for their district’s space with fellow advantaged students from Chitipa, but learning in well-furnished schools like Mary Mount Secondary and St Andrew’s High Schools who score an average of nine points.
If we are happy to be sending to public universities more students from Chitipa just because they are from Chitipa without looking at the dynamics of their learning environment, then we should as well stop complaining about widening gaps between the poor and the rich in the country.
In fact, we should even stop worrying that a meagre one percent controls the wealth of the country at the lustful watch of the 99 percent.
But, I believe we are a nation with a heart to worry about the future of our children.
University education, research shows, is critical in helping the poor to move up the social and economic ladder through competitiveness on the job market.
For instance, in a 2010 study titled Education and Employment in Malawi, Vincent Castel, Martha Phiri and Marco Stampini showed that for both men and women, education is the passport to formal employment and leads to higher hourly earnings.
“Within regular wage employment, secondary education is associated with a 123 percent wage premium and university education with a 234 percent wage premium,” reads the report.
That is why the current erroneous quota system, the one which my synod and its critics are busy warring on, does not respond to the deepest challenge of class disparities in access to public universities.
Somehow, I do understand why my synod, from the word go, has been unwavering in condemning the system as ‘discriminatory to the people of the north’.
Former president the late Bingu wa Mutharika sold the system by attacking the people from the north. Using imaginary statistics and laughable hearsays like Mzuzu corner at Chancellor College (Chanco), he built a rambling case for northerner’s overrepresentation in public universities.
To the synod, that was an assault on the region—eventually, invoking the silent pains the region suffered during Kamuzu Banda days.
As I have said before, the Livingstonia Synod is more than just a medium of metaphysical get through. It lives with the people and, most importantly, it speaks without fear on issues that affect them daily. None can take this role from the synod.
However, on the quota system, here is my prayer: Government should, in the first place, abolish the current quota system because it is only widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Granted, government should open a realistic, evidence-based debate regarding the urgent need to have a class-based quota system in selecting students into public universities. I am not sure if my synod will go against this. If they do, then I will question their resolve to serve the poor. Otherwise, a class-based, not a district-based is my dream quota system.
