By Robert Ngwira

President Lazarus Chakwera has directed ministers of education and finance to have a meeting with the National Council for Higher Education to review the university students’ loans.

The president said, for instance, that the student allowances need to be adjusted upwards to meet the current cost of living that occurred due to the 44 percent devaluation.
The president issued the directive the launch the University Innovation Pod (UNIPOD) at MUBAS in Blantyre.

The UniPod’s primary objective is to provide essential support to youthful innovators by providing them with cutting-edge infrastructure that caters to innovation prototyping, experimentation, and small-scale manufacturing, with the aims of fostering the creation of prototypes that hold significant potential for transforming into commercially viable products hence providing an alternative for export substitution.

The cutting-edge facility is a product of a partnership between MUBAS and UNDP Malawi, who provided both technical expertise and financial support to establish a University Innovation Pod (UniPod) in Malawi.