President Peter Mutharika has given insights on the 12-year free-cycle of education, saying it covers examination fees, identity cards and school development fund (SDF) at both primary and secondary levels.
In a written response yesterday, the President’s spokesperson Shadric Namalomba said the abolition of fees announced on Sunday does not cover boarding fees as that is not part of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) manifesto.
The DPP manifesto for the September 16 General Election mentioned abolition of user fees in primary school, including SDF and payment of IDs for Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb).
At secondary level, the manifesto mentions removal of examination fees for Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) and Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations.
In his response yesterday, Namalomba said: “Boarding fees are not part of the DPP manifesto promise. Therefore, boarding fees will be payable.”
During Mutharika’s first term of office in 2014, government abolished payment of K3 250 per student in public secondary schools that covered K1 500 tuition fees per year, general purpose fund at K1 500 and text book revolving fund at K250. It left SDF and boarding fees.
How will a 12yr cycle cost?
The 2024 Education Management Information System (EMIS) shows that recurrent unit cost of teaching and learning in primary school is K55 644 per learner with 5 222 579 learners in 2023/24, which costs K290.6 billion annually.
The Nation inquiry from primary schools found that pupils pay an average of K2 500 as SDF per term, translating to K7 500 per year. Following the scrapping off, the taxpayer will have to provide K13 billion for all pupils.
Further, the number of Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) candidates was 270557 in 2020, 260318 in 2021, 279084 in 2022, 263862 in 2023, 252668 in 2024 and 246 958 in 2025.
Thus at an average of 250 000 per year, this means government needs to provide K875 million to cover for their ID fees to Maneb.
At secondary level, the EMIS report shows that the unit cost at secondary schools per learner per year is K175 287 and with 419 377 students in public secondary schools in the 2023/24 academic year, this translates to K73.5 billion per year.
Figures in EMIS show that from the 419 377 students in public secondary schools, national boarding schools accounted for 0.5 percent or 2 096 students, grant-aided boarding schools had two percent or 8 386 students while district boarding had 4.4 percent or about 18 449 students.
This leaves about 390 446 students out of boarding.
Secondary School Teachers Union general secretary Pilirani Kapoplo said students in many schools pay an average of K50 000 as SDF, but in other schools, we found that the figure averages K25 000 per term, translating to K75 000 per year.
At that amount, government would roughly need about K29.283 billion to cater for the 390 446 students.
At JCE level, in the 2025 examinations, a student sitting for 11 subjects, was paying K20 130, and assuming that there are 150 000 this coming year, this will require about K3 billion.
At both primary and secondary level, the calculations show that the government would require a minimum of K412 billion.
Experts cautious
Civil Society Education Coalition executive director Benedicto Kondowe said since 2020, government has not been releasing Other Recurrent Transactions (ORT) funds, despite schools regularly preparing and submitting payment vouchers.
He said: “For this policy to succeed, government must provide sufficient teaching and learning materials, expand classrooms, and recruit more teachers.”
Edukans Foundation country director Limbani Nsapato said the previous regime encouraged SDF as each school was told to only charge K1000 but it was good that all the user fees were being abolished.
“When you look at unit costs, it means there has to be substantial investment of over K2 billion over the current budget which was pegged at K1.3 trillion for the education sector, taking us to K1.5 trillion per academic year,” he said.
