By Linda Kwanjana

Minister of Education Madalitso Kambauwa Wirima has hailed private University for the role the Universities are playing in enhancement of quality and access to higher education in the country.

Kambauwa was speaking in Lilongwe when she presided over the graduation ceremony of Unicaf University.

Wirima said the Government cannot meet the demand for higher education.

“Today as we have added to the pool of the human capital with the graduation that we just witnessed I thought it wise to make mention of a word of gratitude to the vice Chancellor and Chancellor of Unicaf University which is a private institution of Higher Learning that they are complementing government where access is concerned in a big way so what I meant in my speech is we have a public universities but from the figures that we have 3% only going to public universities that’s not enough so what I meant by that is having the private institutions they are complementing us,”

Kambauwa has since challenged the graduands to make use of the knowledge and skills which they have gained from the University studies.

The Minister also urged the graduands to respect for others and be of good manners all the time.

Wirima has since commended Unicaf management ,Parents and guardians for the achievements.

In an interview, Unicaf Vice Chancellor, Dr Robert Ridley commended Wirima and other senior Government officials for presiding over the ceremony.

Ridley said was happy that the Minister has demonstrated political will towards enhancement of higher education in the country.

The VC described the day as very important to the history of Unicaf University considering that its fourth graduation ceremony.

“First this is important, this is now our fourth and each time it gets bigger and better and there are a number of Milestones I think this year the first is the number we have 444 graduates secondly we’ve had a very good International response this year so we’ve had a number of graduates coming from countries all across Africa to join the Malawi and graduates for their studies and our online studies are international and students will be in a class online with students from other countries and so it’s an opportunity for maybe they’ve talked and chatted online this is the chance for them to meet I think the fact that we had some refugees coming from South Sudan was very important it shows that no matter what your situation or where you are and they’re based in a refugee camp in South Sudan if you have internet you’re able to study so online education whether it’s from unicaf University or from other universities,” he said.

The VC commended the Ministry of Education for promoting distance learning also for secondary schools saying this provides an opportunity for people to study.

The VC was happy that people graduating with PhDs have increased saying if the country is to develop economically it does that through creating business it does that through creating business through Innovation “You have to think of something new to succeed in business not innovation is driven by research and in universities research is driven by students doing phds later on and more advanced societies there will be doctoral searches and they will be full-time researchers but to start we need more PhD graduates we need more PhD graduates from unicaf.

“Our universities that will generate research it will generate new results generating Innovation it will generate economic growth any country that has developed has done so on the back of University education well primary education secondary education tertiary education but also research so our universities have to start doing more research and we have to work together collectively to find more resources to finance that research so I think our PhD doctoral graduates this year please to have that number of doctorate degrees,” he said.