NCHE closes ’varsity that ‘decorated’ APM, Kaliati

Hundreds of learners at Africa University of Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development (AUGCYD) will forfeit their degrees and certificates following a National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) decision to strike off the institution over ownership row with government.

The university that has an average enrolment of close to 200 annually, recently awarded honorary doctorate degrees to President Peter Mutharika and Minister of Civic Education, Culture and Community Development Patricia Kaliati.

Presidential spokesperson Mgeme Kalilani confirmed that the university once awarded the doctorate to Mutharika, but that the matter was just announced to the public without any formality.

He said: “The purported honorary degree was never accepted by the President. That is why you never heard anything from the presidency.”

NCHE corporate services manager Dingani Soko said the deregistering of the school means that all the learners pursuing any course at the university have to find other institutions to continue with their education.

Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), which was supposed to be one of the owners of the said university, questioned the certificates and degrees the university has been dishing out over the years, saying MoEST was not aware of any meeting that authorised the award of certificates or who was awarding the certificates.

The university was registered as a public institution based on a claim that it was part of Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Centre for Africa (GCYDCA) and that the Council of Ministers of Education in Africa sanctioned its establishment.

GCYDCA is an inter-governmental non-profit making organisation established by African Ministers of Education in 1994 and was established as a regional centre to coordinate and manage the Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development programme.

The centre is located in Lilongwe.

NCHE has since withdrawn the licence to the university over misrepresentation of facts and described the registration of AUGCYD as irregular.

In a NCHE press release, the council said: “In view of the above, the council resolved to withdraw the registration of Africa University of Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development [AUGCYD]. Management of AUGCYD shall, if they so wish, re-apply for registration.”

In the assessment review report that The Nation has seen, NCHE made “critical observations”, including lack of clear separation between the university and the centre, creating a governance crisis in terms of transparency and accountability.

“The university is located in a structure that was not purposely built for this training as they are sharing library, classrooms, and administrative staff and ablution blocks with Guidance and Counselling Centre,” reads the assessment report.

MoEST spokesperson Lindiwe Chide confirmed that the establishment of the university was not approved by the board of directors of the GCYDCA.

The centre was granted full diplomatic status by the government of Malawi and all legal capacities comparable to the UN agencies and other international organisations.

Trouble at the centre started between June and July 2016 when several members of the university’s council resigned with Dr Isaac Lamba—a Malawian academic and diplomat—saying his resignation was a demonstration of professional maturity, responsibility and integrity.

Bemoaned Lamba: “The invisibility of democratic institutional governance, the strategic obstruction of any avenue for staff to channel their legitimate concerns to management and a culture of gossip.”

In a letter to the university’s principal Dr Jacqueline Chazama, one member of the council, Robert Mangwiro, wrote: “It is with regret that I announce my resignation from the university council membership. The Africa University has a future which needs to be guarded jealously through the pillars of transparency, accountability, financial integrity and honesty.” n