Ching’ombe and Chadza candidates to write deferred English paper
Candidates from Ching’ombe and Chadza 1 Community Day Secondary Schools will have sit again for English Paper 1 that was administered on Tuesday throughout the country in the ongoing 2021 Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) Examinations.
Administration of the said paper which was written from 1:30 pm to 3:15 pm was disrupted at the two schools in Lilongwe Rural East by stormy rains which blew off roofs of facilities where candidates were sitting for the examinations.
A total of 171 candidates had their scripts completely soaked by the rains and three candidates sustained some injuries and were treated as out patients at Nathenje Health Centre.
Meanwhile, the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) has said it is saddened with this unexpected disruptive incident.
Executive Director for MANEB, Professor Dorothy Nampota, has through an official press release told the nation that a deferred examination of the paper will be administered to all the 171 candidates affected by the disaster.
“To ensure fairness in the administration of the examinations, MANEB will administer a deferred examination of the paper to all the 171 candidates affected by the disaster. The date for the administration of the deferred examinations will be communicated to the candidates in due course.
“Arrangements have been made to relocate the candidates to the nearest available facilities where they will continue writing the remaining examinations as well as the deferred English Paper 1 examination,” explained Nampota in the press release.
One parent whose child is among those concerned expressed dismay on the incident while asking not to be named.
“This is quite disturbing. The change of environment itself is also a factor that can disturb those candidates. Stormy rains are a natural calamity but can we not think that the school structures were not strong enough. Government should make sure school structures are very strong,” remarked the parent.
In a related development, there were no printed attendance registers for English Paper II in some schools in the city of Mzuzu. For every subject, there is always an attendance register in triplicate which candidates sign. The original goes to MANEB while the duplicate and triplicate remains at the examination centre.
“It’s MANEB’s fault. We had to write by hand on plain papers for candidates to sign. It was so hectic,” remarked one supervisor who did not want to be named.
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