‘You can’t mortgage children’s future’: Opposition leader demands reversal of university fee hike that saw costs double overnight

Malawi’s opposition leader has demanded the immediate reversal of a controversial university fee hike that has seen tuition costs double from K650,000 to K1.3 million a year, warning the policy is pricing ordinary families out of higher education and threatening the country’s future prosperity.

Simplex Chithyola Banda told parliament the fee increase – which he said was even steeper for students studying health sciences – was in breach of Malawians’ constitutional right to education, and called on government to scrap or phase in the changes with proper financial support for struggling families.

“The doubling of public university tuition fees from K650,000 to K1.3 million a year for most students, and even higher for health sciences students, is depriving children of ordinary households their constitutional right,” he said, “and we demand its subsequent reversal or, at minimum, phased with real support for the families who cannot absorb it overnight.”

The opposition leader warned that the policy risked entrenching inequality by favouring wealthier families over talented but less affluent students, undermining the meritocratic principles that should underpin the education system.

“A good policy must reward merit and the qualified than the rich,” he said. “The current policy in its state perpetuates favouritism and nepotism in education and employment.”

He cautioned that pricing ordinary Malawians out of university would have consequences stretching far beyond individual families, jeopardising the country’s long-term development ambitions under its Malawi 2063 vision.

“The exorbitant university fees will create the gate that only the already-comfortable can afford, making building human capital for Malawi 2063 very difficult,” he said.

“Let us not mortgage our children’s future. Remember a country that prices its own children out of university is not investing in its own future.”

Chithyola Banda’s comments form part of a wider critique of government’s record on youth opportunity, in which he also called for a credible plan to tackle youth unemployment and demanded that jobs be awarded strictly on merit rather than favouritism.

He urged government to prioritise “merit-based employment and a credible plan for youth jobs” as part of a broader package of demands presented to the House on behalf of ordinary Malawians, alongside calls for greater transparency across government spending and decision-making.