250 secondary schools defraud students of MSCE examinations fees
Thousands of students who sat for the 2017 Malawi Schools Certificate of Education (MSCE) form 250 Secondary Schools risk having their results not released after it has been discovered that their schools defrauded them of examination fees by not remitting it to the Malawi National Examination Board (Maneb) which manages the local examinations.
It has been established that the fraudulent activities involve both government and private secondary schools with Maneb disclosing that a total of K81 million paid by the concerned students did not reach Maneb offices.
This year each student paid an average of K30 000 in examination registration and fees and the money is collected through the management of respective schools who in return pay to Maneb.
Maneb spokesperson Simeon Maganga confirmed in an interview that after reconciling their records, it was discovered that the schools did not pay the examination fees despite most of them receiving the money from the candidates.
“Registration of candidates takes place at school level and students pay from there. Schools are expected to deposit the amount and give us bank deposit slips. It was during reconciliation that we discovered some discrepancies. We informed the management of the said schools, however if they fail to respond in time we will have no option but to withhold the results,” said Maganga.
The Maneb spokesperson could not immediately give the specific number of students involved but said the actual figure for the unpaid examination fees is K58 242 910 while 13, 648 592 is a 20 percent penalty for late payment.
Maganga said last year Maneb experienced similar incidents with almost the same number of schools failing to pay the examination fees for its students.
He explained that this year, the board made sure that all students write the examination and resolve all issues that follow later to avoid breaching students’ right to education but the schools are required to pay a penalty charge.
In the past years some directors of mainly private schools have been arrested for allegedly embezzling examination fees for their students.
Maneb finished registration for the 2017 MSCE examination on December 9 2016, however, it provided a chance for late registration with a penalty of K2000 per student up until December 30, 2016.
this doesn’t make sense, the students paid so why punish them when its the school that failed to pay you , this is not fair penapake we need to think before making some decisions and think about how some students struggled to pay for that exam together with the parents stop stressing people for other peoples mistakes ngati mufuna chuma deal with the schools not the students..
It seems maneb has been tolerating this for some time.
I think MANEB should do some soul searching on itself. There are higher chances that this said money was paid to MANEB but perhaps the schools fell short of providing all documentation to the board. It is not understandable that such a high number of schools should be involved in this. By indicating that this was also the case last year MANEB is just exposing its weaknesses. There is something wrong with MANEB not the schools
Hahahaha MANEB, mudslinging have you declared how many schools and reachers you are defrauding? Just shut up and do your work. Maganga, you are a disgrace to the teaching profession…..
Koma ku Malawi eehhhhh
So the students will be punished because the school administrators did not forward the fees paid by the students! Strange justice! And a strange lesson for the students! This is despicable!
You need more education!
I think MANEB’s decision to punish innocent students by withholding their results is STUPID and RETARDED idea. Come on people! you know the problem is not students’ fault but school management, what do you intent to achieve by withholding the results. There are several ways you can force these corrupt school officials to pay the money, but please, spare the innocent students and parents /guardians. Wait a minute, did you just say that the closing date for registration was 30 Dec 2016? It is beyond my imagination that MANEB management had at least 6 months to rectify the problem, which… Read more »
Is it true that all the concerned schools defrauded the students? From the little truth that i know, it is not all the concerned schools, some are due to calculation errors. some have shortfalls of say K 4,000 / K 3,350 for their school. Some headlines carry some half truths at times.
A sensible comment, at last.
Very stupid indeed why now all these days? Just try to make that trash of yours you dont track know how anger people are…..