Education activists have condemned Malawi National Examination’s Board (Maneb’s) decision to restructure the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination following the phasing out of Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) examinations.
On October 27 this year, Maneb released a statement informing the public that a number of measures will be taken to restructure the MSCE examination, regarding the 2019 examination paper content and format.
In the statement Maneb, has indicated that the 2019 MSCE examination will cover work from form one to form four.
The statements also indicates that the examination syllabus committees will meet to develop new MSCE tables for test specification based on both the junior and senior secondary syllabuses.
Sample of MSCE papers according to the statement, will be developed from the new MSCE tables of test specification and sent to all secondary schools by January, 2018.
Maneb’s Public Relations Officer, Simeon Maganga, confirmed the contents of the statement which has been signed by Acting Executive Director of the board, Jack Chalimba.
“As you are aware, we are no longer offering JCE as part of our reforms. This has prompted as to restructure MSCE examinations format but the change will not affect those that are currently in form 4 and form 3 but pupils in form 2 and below. The change will come into effect in 2019,” Maganga said.
However, the decision did not go well with Civil Society Coalition’s Executive Director Benedicto Kondowe who said the idea will increase failure rate in the MSCE examinations.
Kondowe said the decision is not viable and will have a devastating impact on MSCE results because government has failed to put proper measures on how it will roll out after abolishing JCE examination.
“The idea to remove JCE has already been heavily criticised and before the issue is resolved government is restructuring MSCE examination which will dwindle the standard of education. Government ought to discuss the matter with relevant stakeholders and approach the matter with sober mind before adopting the idea. What is critical is for the stakeholders to discuss these matters thoroughly otherwise we are going to have more failures in MSCE examinations,” Kondowe said.
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