By Dean Chisambo
Deputy chairman of Parliamentary committe on education, science and technology deputy chairman who is also member of parliament for Thyolo North Ephraim Nayeja said is committed to support the ministry of education science and technology to get additional funds ahead of mid- term budget review which will be held in November at Parliament building in Lilongwe.
Nayeja made the remarks on Thursday after ministry of education, science and technology delegation appeared to the committee at Parliament building in Lilongwe.
He stated that the main issue which they discussed with the ministry is about Malawi college of distance education (MCDE) where they gave background of institution on what has been the success, challenges and the way forward.
Nayeja revealed that what they have noted from the discussion has shown that the ministry want to improve the education in Malawi as they are providing education and training through distance learning in this country.
He said :” there are so many challenges that they are facing, they are coming here to seek for addition funding, so that they can improve delivery of training method”.
Naija disclosed that the ministry mentioned the issue to do with deputy director which has been vacant for so long due to funding issue to do with smooth running of their operation which is a challenge to them due to low funding.
He further said that they did mention in their discussion that they would like to open an university in area 30 ,that again will require additional from the parliament during mid- term budget review.
He said: they have a lot of things that they want to do for the country inorder to achieve agenda of 2063 human resource development enabler number six.”
He added that they will support issues to do with funding through highlighting the issue of allocation disbursement and due to what they are doing, strategical position and also ambition which they want to achieve.
On his remarks ministry of education, science and technology Principal secretary Mangani Chilala Katundu said the purpose of the meeting is for the committee to learn what the ministry of education are doing about open and E-learning activities through the Malawi college distance education (MCDE).
He said the committee wanted to understand what is the mandate, activities they are implementing and if they have stopped providing open distance education in the country.
Katundu:” as you know there are used to have MCDE’s all over the country and sometimes when we don’t hear the name MCDE’s it paint a picture as the MCDE’s are gone.
“MCDE’s are still available, they were transformed in the 1998, the government had a new policy and 520 MCDE’s that were there converted to community day secondary school. However as a ministry now we got 715 open secondary schools and these open secondary schools are providing the same services that we used to provide under the distance education colleges (DEC) as they were known.”
He further said that Malawians should not look at distance education as inferior yet its not inferior so the ministry is working on developing the Malawi open university in future which will be also just like University of South Africa (UNISA) which is providing distance learning in Malawi.
He added by hailed the committee for their commitment to support the ministry during the mid- year budget review request for their additional resources.
According to ministry of education science and technology said currently 96,220 candidates that have in rolled are able to access open distance education services.
