New Malawi examination council NIEAC to administer JCE exams 2017
Exams time
Speaking when the council was presenting feedback from a research it carried in the country, Director for the council Phyless Kachingwe said all is set for the council to start administrating the examination starting with junior certificate of examination next year.
“We are geared to start administering the exams from next year. We have put in place all the structures and the resources that require us to embark on administering exams,” she said
This comes after government earlier this year announced that it has stopped JCE and primary School leaving certificate examination, citing finances as the major contributing factor.
Kachingwe said “We feel the exams and issuing of certificates are very important in improving our education standard as evidenced from our research that we carried out throughout the country. We are also doing these meetings to get inputs and outputs from the stakeholders on how best to carry out our job.”
According to Kachingwe, pupils will have to pay for the examinations as what they used to pay with Maneb, adding” we do not have legal mandate to impose that every school should write the examination, the decision will come from the parents and students.”
A consultant for the research, Bishop Patricia Pindeni, said the research finding shows that 80% percent of the participants were not consulted on governments’ decision to abolish the administration of the exams.
“Most of the participants to the research feel government rushed into coming up with this idea. They feel school will be useless since they will leave schools with no certificates to show that they are indeed educated, a situation where employers will find a reason of not employing them, hence contributing to soaring unemployment levels, ” she said
Shy Alli, a parent said he was impressed with the idea of administering the examinations as it will help to improve the education standards in the country.
“Students will no longer be lazy because there will be completion during examinations which will in turn bring about quality. But my appeal is that the certificates should be accreditated or be of good quality,” he said.
NIEAC will be the first private council to administer local examinations after MANEB which was mandated by the Act of parliament to administer public examination in the country.