Chilima cautioned!

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Saulos Chilima

Lilongwe based political analyst Loudon Malingamoyo Phiri has warned the Malawi vice president Saulos Chilima and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the introduction of fees in government owned schools and abolishment of Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) citing it will play a role in the 2019 elections.

In an interview with Malawi24, Malingamoyo Phiri said the reforms in education sector will affect many poor Malawians who have the power of votes.

He uttered that the development will be an advantage to the opposition parties in the 2019 general elections since it will affect those from the grass root.

His remarks come after the abolishment of JCE and introduction of fees in schools which Chilima claims its part of the “Reforms” in education sector and is the head of the committee.

Saulos Chilima
Chilima with President Mutharika get drilled.

“There are no doubts that some of opposition parties will take this as an opportunity to win the votes in 2019 elections. This is 2015 and there is four more years ahead. Government should properly inform its cabinet on this. When people get misinformed they lose trust in government and it becomes another party’s opportunity,” stated Malingamoyo Phiri.

However, he commended the government saying the abolishment will serve resource used spent on administration and printing of examinations.

According to Malingamoyo Phiri, JCE is hardly used when applying for a job. He urged Malawians to concur with the government since the resources served will be used in other service delivery.

He explained, “JCE is no longer in use in Malawi. You can hardly find place where they are saying that when somebody is applying for a job should have JCE or PSLCE. This is not bad because government is trying to make sure that there is cost serving of tax payer’s money. Government shouldn’t be criticised much on this issue because there are many big issues that the government is not doing good.”

Despite free Primary Education and loan in state Universities, Malawi’s education system been hampered by problems of poor access, high repetition and dropout rates, poor infrastructure and inequality. For the past decades, ruling governments Government of Malawi has failed to make education, particularly primary education, and top priority.

Meanwhile government has been advised to increase the equity of public spending in education by increasing allocation of public resources to primary education as a way of easing the constraints on the demand for education faced by poor households