Ministry of Education to get additional funding 

The parliamentary committee on Education, science, and Technology deputy chairman who is also a member of parliament for Thyolo North Ephraim Nayeja has pledged to support the Ministry of Education Science and Technology to get additional funds ahead of the mid-term budget review which is expected to be held in November.

Nayeja made the remarks on Thursday after the Ministry of Education, science, and Technology delegation appeared to the committee at the Parliament Building in Lilongwe.

He stated that the main issue which they discussed with the ministry is about the Malawi College of Distance Education (MCDE) where they gave background of the institution on what has been the success, challenges, and the way forward.

Nayeja revealed that what they have noted from the discussion has shown that the ministry wants to improve education in Malawi as they are providing education and training through distance learning in this country.

He said:” There are so many challenges that they are facing, they are coming here to seek for additional funding so that they can improve the delivery of training methods”.

Naija disclosed that the ministry mentioned the issue to do with the deputy director which has been vacant for so long due to funding issues to do with the smooth running of their operation which is a challenge to them due to low funding.

He further said that they did mention in their discussion that they would like to open a university in area 30, which again will require additional from the parliament during the mid-term budget review.

He said: they have a lot of things that they want to do for the country to achieve agenda of 2063 human resource development enabler number six.”

He added that they will support issues to do with funding by highlighting the issue of allocation disbursement and due to what they are doing, strategical position, and also ambition which they want to achieve.

In his remarks, Ministry of Education, science, and Technology Principal Secretary Mangani Chilala Katundu said the purpose of the meeting is for the committee to learn what the Ministry of Education is doing about open and E-learning activities through the Malawi College Distance Education (MCDE).

He said the committee wanted to understand what is the mandate, the activities they are implementing, and if they have stopped providing open distance education in the country.

Katundu:” As you know there used to be MCDEs all over the country and sometimes when we don’t hear the name MCDE it paints a picture that MCDEs are gone.

“MCDEs are still available, they were transformed in 1998, the government had a new policy, and 520 MCDEs that were there were converted to community day secondary schools. However as a ministry now we have 715 open secondary schools and these open secondary schools are providing the same services that we used to provide under the distance education colleges (DEC) as they were known.”

He further said that Malawians should not look at distance education as inferior yet it’s not inferior so the ministry is working on developing the Malawi open university in the future which will be also just like the University of South Africa (UNISA) which is providing distance learning in Malawi.

He added by hailed the committee for their commitment to support the ministry during the mid-year budget review request for their additional resources.

According to the Ministry of Education Science and Technology currently, 96,220 candidates who have in enrolled can access open distance education services.