Social commentator Onjezani Kenani has hailed President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera for ordering for the immediate replacement of Malawi National Examination Board (MANEB) management for the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination leakage.
On Thursday Chakwera gave Minister of Education Science and Technology (MoEST) a week to hunt down culprits that leaked MSCE examination.
“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.
Writing on his official facebook page Kenani hailed Chakwera for the swift intervention on the matter.
“Have seen some argue that the President is wrong in ordering the removal of management at MANEB. “They should punish the culprits who actually committed the crime, not innocent people,” they say. Sorry, it’s time we began to to implement the doctrine of command responsibility. A junior soldier in the army can commit attrocities on his own volition, but it’s his commander who gets punished.
“This is why in advanced economies, a junior staff in a bank commits a crime, the bank’s chief executive owns up and resigns. The man at the top is responsible for creating an enabling control environment, and for establishing sufficient internal controls to prevent examination leakage. Did management at MANEB put such controls in place? The fact that there is leakage at such a massive scale means they did not, therefore they must be held responsible for what has happened,” wrote Kenani.
Meanwhile debate on the matter continues…
