Ministry of Higher Education, in conjunction with the National Council for Higher Education, has released the 2024/25 selection list into the six public universities and two public colleges.
Presenting a statement in Lilongwe yesterday, Minister of Higher Education Jessie Kabwila said out of 24 582 candidates (15 692 males and 8 890 females) who qualified for selection, 14 175 (8 421 males and 5 764 females) have been selected.
The selection represents 59 percent males and 41 percent females which Kabwila described as a right direction towards achieving the National Education Sector Investment Plan (NESIP) 2020-2030.
Steven Pembamoyo
“Through NESIP 2020-2030, the Ministry of Higher Education strives to ensure that each year Malawi is improving on access to higher education since this sector is key to accelerating the achievement of Malawi 2063 Vision,” she said.
Out of the 14 175 students, 12 819 (7 627 males and 5 202 females) have been selected into the six public universities while 1 356 students (794 males and 562 females) have been selected to Domasi and Nalikule colleges.
Kabwila said it is pleasing that the competition for selection into public higher education institutions between males and females is improving.
She said the number of selected students is expected to rise to 16 675 when other colleges make their own selections and the universities also select additional students in their various programmes such as e-Learning and Opens and Distance Learning (ODL).
In this year’s selection list, government has considered 95 students with special needs into public universities; 35 of whom were selected on merit while 60 were affirmatively selected upon meeting the minimum entry requirements of six credits including English.
The minister encouraged the selected students who require education loans to follow the calendar of the Higher Education Students Loans and Grants Board to apply when the window opens.
“The board does not give loans to students who have not applied, so make sure that you follow the calendar and once applications have been opened, apply to be considered,” she said.
In his remarks, Nche chairperson Professor Estone Sambo said the harmonised system of selection was introduced to eliminate multiple selections where some students were into more than one programme while others were denied space.
“In the past, each university was making its own selection as such some students would be lucky to be selected by more than one university yet other equally deserving students did not get a chance so we decided to harmonise the system to eliminate that,” he said.
