Nkhotakota form four students suspended indefinitely

Just four months before the final form four examinations, the Malawi School Certificate of Examinations, all form four students at Nkhotakota Secondary School have been indefinitely sent packing Wednesday for refusing to write the school’s mid-term examinations.

The students action came as a protest strategy as they claim that they are far behind in learning to complete their syllabus though only four months remain before they write the Malawi National Examinations Boards (MANAB) exams.

There have been disagreements between the form four students and the teachers on mid-term examinations which the students were told to write before leaving for their mid-term holiday.

The students had been telling their teachers that they could not write the mid-term tests because they were worried with their actual examinations as they are not sure if the teachers would be able to teach them all the topics in their syllabus in the remaining four months before the MANEB exams.

“We still have many subjects to cover in Agriculture and English as key subjects as such that we see no reason for writing the mid-term tests instead of proceeding with our normal classes to cover the topics,” explained the students.

They continued narrating their problems: “For instance, in English literature, the books of Romeo and Juliet, and Smoldering charcoal, they still remain idle, while the books of Looking for Rain God and Unsung Song, we are only at introduction level.”

The school management tried to reason with the students but their negotiations yielded nothing and the school’s head-teacher, Grecian Reuben proceeded to suspend all the form four students and told them to leave the school.

The head teacher refused to speak to LINA on the matter but the District Education Manager’s Office said the issue was amicably resolved when their office intervened two weeks ago, on February 24, and said they were not aware of the suspension of the students.

Meanwhile, all form 4 students have left the school campus peacefully without any reports of vandalism at the school. – LINA