MANEB withholds MSCE results for Nkhata Bay, 250 other centres over debts

The Malawi National Examination Board (MANEB) is withholding 2015 MSCE examination results for Nkhata Bay Secondary School and 250 other examination centers over outstanding debts, Nyasa Times has established.

MANEB released 2015 MSCE results on October 13 2015, but some schools are yet to receive their results for not settling examination fees and related payments with MANEB.

According to information that Nyasa Times has gathered, students at the national secondary school duly paid the examination fees, but the school management allegedly used part of the funds for other things at the facility.

“Four form students paid examination fees and met all the necessary requirements, but school did not forward all the funds to MANEB.

“At the moment students and their parents bitter and are demanding explanations from school authorities over the development,” said the source, who asked for anonymity.

Likewise, MANEB spokesperson Simeon Maganga confirmed on Tuesday that they are withholding MSCE results of over 250 examination centres, including the school in question, due to suspected outstanding debts.

“We communicated this development to relevant education offices in the affected districts who conveyed the same to the affected schools. Such schools’ representatives have since been coming to our offices with either evidence of payment or paying the balance, and they have since been collecting their examination results after settling the balances. Some centres have not come, yet,” said Maganga.
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He also said MANEB does not entertain any queries on examination results from individual candidates or anyone else apart from relevant examination centres.

Maganga advised that those examination centres whose examination results are still withheld should take trouble to come to their offices  and settle the balance so that they access results and give to their candidates.

“Candidates whose results have been withheld due to suspected examination malpractices have a “W” clearly appearing as their grade in respective subjects. As rules of natural justice demand a person accused of any misconduct must be appraised of the particulars of the allegations made against him so that he may be able to prepare a defence adequately, we will be meeting them shortly to hear their defence before deciding on their fate,” said Maganga.

‪He also declined to reveal names of the affected centres or candidates in fear of breaching the “client confidentiality agreement”.

‪But Head Teacher for Nkhata Bay Secondary School, Ekenward Banda, who admitted to have been engulfed with pressure from students’ parents over the development, denied claims that they owe MANEB in examination fees.

Banda said he was equally baffled when he got communication from MANEB requesting for the outstanding debt.

“Its true, MANEB has not released the results for our school and the students are very anxious. MANEB is demanding payment of K7,688, a figure we are not sure of. We are doing everything possible to have the results as soon as possible.

“We sent a representative to MANEB offices and he should be here tomorrow (Wednesday) with concrete information regarding MANEB’s claims. As such, I can competently comment and provide meaningful information after being briefed by our representative who is on his way to NkhataBay from Zomba,” said Banda when contacted to provide school’ side of the story.

According to MANEB, out of the 136,296 candidates who sat for this year’s examination, in at least six subjects including English, 75,296 qualified for the award of the MSCE representing a 55.24% pass rate.

Out of the 80,958 internal candidates who sat for this year’s examination, in at least six subjects including English, 46,422 qualified for the award of the MSCE representing a 57.34% pass rate.

Out of the 26,741 external candidates who sat for this year’s examination, in at least six subjects including English, 14,370 qualified for the award of the MSCE representing a 53.74% pass rate.

Out of the 28,597 open candidates who sat for this year’s examination, in at least six subjects including English, 14,504 qualified for the award of the MSCE representing a 50.72% pass rate.

Thirty-eight candidates were disqualified in the examination for contravening MANEB regulations. The letter ‘D’ appears against the names of such candidates on the pass/fail list.

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