President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera has ordered the Malawi National Examination Board (MANEB) to re-administer the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination not later than January.
The order comes barely hours after MANEB officials together with Minister of Education Science and Technology (MoEST) Agnes Nyalonje cancelled the 2020 MSCE examination due to serious leakage of various examination papers.
Addressing Malawians from Kamuzu Palace in the capital Lilongwe Chakwera expressed his anger over the leakage, saying the act is uncalled for and demanded immediate action from the Minister of Education.
“I am giving the Minister of Education one week to work with MANEB to identify and discipline either the people who did this or the officers whose negligence allowed this to happen. One week.
“Additionally, the idea that students have to wait until March next year to take exams or that their guardians have to bear the cost of this failure is not an idea I find to be in the public interest. I am therefore giving the Malawi National Examination Board until the end of this month to remove the top management of MANEB, on account of this gross failure, and replace it with a new team that will conduct the most credible examinations Malawi has ever had, which must be done no later than January,” said Chakwera.
He added: “A country that just witnessed the best national election in history being conducted in record time cannot be expected to tolerate having to wait five months for school exams to be administered.”
MANEB Executive Director Gerald Chiunda on Wednesday accused some workers at the institution of being behind the leakage.
