Maneb rejects independent examination council

The Malawi national Examination Board (Maneb) has warned parents and guardians to tread carefully as they deal with New Independent Academic Examination Council (NIAEC) which is demanding money from students in the name of registration for examinations.

Speaking at a press briefing in Blantyre on Thursday, Maneb acting executive director Jack Chalimba reminded the general public that NIAEC has not yet been accredited by government and has no mandate to administer examinations in the country as earlier communicated by the Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MoEST)  in its  May 19,2016 press statement.

Chalimba emphasised that NIAEC is run by business people whose main interests are monetary.

He also warned that parents who wish to work with NIAEC risk being deceived as the certificate the organisation will offer will be fake as it will not be recognised by government.

The acting Maneb executive director gave NIAEC a 14 day ultimatum to remove any logo, words or wording that seem to link Maneb to dealings of NIAEC from any of its publications or utterances.

“Should this demand not be honoured from this date, Maneb will have no option other than seek legal redress on this matter,” he warned.

Commenting on the matter, Maneb Director of finance Thomas Dokotala said MANEB is not ready to work with an organisation that has not proved to the Malawi Government that it has a workforce with necessary assessment competence to professionally and objectively assess learners.

Dokotala further said the board took so long to act on NIAEC’s conduct as a deliberate move to see how far it would go.

“We are worried about what this may do to the general public particularly learners and opted to take this step to inform the general public who might end up being duped,” he said.

Responding to allegations by Maneb, NIAEC director Phyles Kachingwe said her organisation decided to take up the role of administering Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) examinations following complaints raised by the general public after government abolished the examinations.

She said the council conducted a research on the matter and 96 percent of the people they talked to expressed disappointment at the abolition of the examinations saying it will push down further the standards of education in the country.

She maintained that as a council they are set to administer the 2017 JCE examinations and are optimistic that government will accredit the council later after seeing and assessing its work.

On the use of Maneb logo on its sample certificate, Kachingwe said the certificate was taken to Maneb as a sample when they wanted to enter into a memorandum of understand with the board in April this year “and when it [Maneb] refused to work with us we redesigned everything and we are no longer using anything to do with Maneb.”

“We are not fighting with anybody or forcing anybody to sit for our examinations. We are doing this for the good of this country. Government has been encouraging Public Private Partnership and I do not expect such comments from Maneb.

“We invested K20 million in this and we are not backing off. I am a chartered accountant, I make my own money, what reason do I have to steal other people’s money,” queried Kachingwe.

On May 19 this year, MoEST issued a statement cautioning the general public to trade carefully as they deal with NIAEC.

“As we all know that government is phasing out administering JCE and that this examination will no longer be administered from 2017, it sounds absurd that government should be said to have entered into an agreement with the so called NIAEC on an examination it is phasing out.

In as far as the ministry is concerned, the reforms surrounding the issuing of PSLCE remains as previously communicated to the general public in 2015,” reads part of the statement.