Parliamentarians raise concern over high examination fees

Minister of Education Agnes NyaLonje has said the government will look into concerns that national examination fees are expensive in the country.

NyaLonje was responding to concerns from legislators that some parents and guardians fail to pay for the examinations as well as school fees due to challenges brought about by COVID-19 and natural disasters.

The Parliamentarians also raised the issue of need to regulate examination fees especially in private schools who allegedly are charging twice more than public schools for students to register for the exams.

NyaLonje said her Ministry will take it up with The Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) and the inspection department within the Ministry to get to the bottom of the issue especially on the overcharging.

On allegations that some school are charging twice more than government schools, NyaLonje said: “If we are talking of National Examinations administered by MANEB, the fees are not different for students regardless of where they writing the examinations from.

“However my Ministry will look into it to see what is exactly is going on. If the fees are varied as my honourable colleague is saying, then we have a problem….That cannot be right.”

On need to waive fees, the Minister said it was a very critical question because registration for examinations were underway and it was a time limited process such that should the issue raised happen to affect a lot of learners, then she would take it to MANEB to look at the issue because this comes under MANEB.

“But what we commit to do is to ask MANEB to look at the issue and see if there is anything that can be done keeping in mind that the reason there are these fees is to to allow for processes to be managed.

“The money is used for examination processes. So saying those fees will be waived just like that would create problems elsewhere, so we will look at it and we will and come back with a response,” said the Minister.