The Catholic University of Malawi has become the first private university in Malawi to be accredited to train lawyers in the country.

The move by the National Council for Higher Education has come in the middle of a heated debate over whether the country’s laws should be amended to allow for paralegals to be able to represent clients, mostly the underprivileged.

Of course the NCHE assessment of the Bachelor of Law program at Catholic University of Malawi dates back to May when the CU invited the NCHE to conduct the exercise.

Until now, only government, through Chancellor College of the University of Malawi offered a nationally recognised Bachelor of Law degree.