Minister of Education Hon. Agnes Nyalonje has promised to take the issue of overcharging of examination fees by some schools with the Malawi National Examinations Board ( MANEB) and the inspection department within her Ministry to get to the bottom of the issue.
The Minister said this in Parliament on Friday, February 11th, 2022 as she was responding to some concerns from legislators.
Among others, the lawmakers complained to the minister that some parents and guardians may not afford to pay for exams as well as school fees due to challenges brought about by Covid-19 and natural disasters.
Further, they raised the issue of the need to regulate examination fees especially in private schools allegedly are charging twice more than public schools for students to register for the exams.
Responding to the concerns, Nyalonje said National Examinations administered by MANEB, the fees are not different for students regardless of where they are writing the examinations from
“However my Ministry will look into it to see what exactly is going on because if the fees are varied as my honorable colleague is saying, then we have a problem.. that cannot be right,” Nyalonje responded.
On the need to waive fees, Nyalonje said it was a very critical question because registration for examinations was underway and it was a time-limited process such that should the issue raised happen to affect a lot of learners, then she would take it to MANEB to look at the issue being a responsible body.
“But what we commit to doing is to ask MANEB to look at the issue and see if there is anything that can be done keeping in mind that the reason there are these fees is to allow for processes to be managed,” She highlighted.
To add to that, Nyalonje said to just say the fees will be waived just like that would create problems elsewhere, so they will look at it and come back with a response in the house.
