Financial hiccups haunt Ngara Community College

Inadequate funding has slowed down the push to provide quality training in community technical colleges President Mutharika launched three years ago.

Ngara Community Technical College in Karonga, where Mutharika officially launched the skills development initiative in March 2015, is one of the affected colleges.

During a tour last week, Ngara Community College principal Green Nyirongo said inadequate funding force instructors to contribute money for the running of the institution, especially settling utility bills.

He said: “We receive K500 000 per term which gets depleted halfway through. This is affecting our work. We need more funding from government,” Nyirongo said.

The college does not have staff houses and plumbing instructors. The trade enrols 30 trainees.

He, however, described the community college initiative as a success as 73 trainees, including 33 girls, completed training last year.

“Most of the trainees have started up businesses whereas others have been enrolled in national technical colleges,” he said.

Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Francis Kasaila visited Ngara last week.

He said the ministry is aware of such challenges and have engaged Treasury to equip the colleges with more funding for the recruitment of more instructors.

“We expected the colleges to face some challenges. But we have initiatives that were geared towards addressing these gaps,” said Kasaila. n