The Malawi Polytechnic , a constituent college of the University of Malawi officially received a new campus in Chichiri, Blantyre, at a handover ceremony held on Wednesday.

The college’s Principal Grant Kululanga said the new campus, which used to belong to the Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL), will see an increase in access to tertiary education.

“One of the strategies we have in place is to acquire more infrastructures so we can accommodate more students in our institutions. This is why we wrote government two years ago on the same and fortunately, they bought as this place from MTL,” Kululanga said.

He said the place, which has been rehabilitated by the internal staff at the college, has the capacity of 800 students but since it has just opened its doors this year, it has 200 students only.

Chairperson of the r e h a b i l i t a t i o n p r o j e c t committee who is also Dean of Engineering at the college Mike Chinyama applauded the management for trusting its internal staff to do the work.

The campus so far has 23 classroom space, office space, 1,000 desks and 40 computers ready for use. Open theatre, resource room, common room and video conferencing room will also be constructed in the subsequent phases.

The project has been done with funding from government to the tune of close to K100 million. Most of the structures being renovated used to be hostel as the place that used to be known as Multi Country.

The new campus has taken over faculties of E d u c a t ion and Media Studies, Applied Studies and Built Environment from the main campus. It will also accommodate Continuing Education Centre.