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Northern MPs query Form One selection

Members of Parliament (MPs) from constituencies in the Northern Region on Wednesday cried foul that selection of Form One students to two national secondary schools had segregated children from the region.

Mzuzu City MP Joe Njikho raised the issue in his contribution to the 2014/15 National Budget debate.

PP MPs who walked out in solidarity with Ngwira
PP MPs who walked out in solidarity with Ngwira

Njikho informed the House that of the 52 Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) candidates selected to Nkhata Bay Secondary School, not one was from the Northern Region or the district itself.

He said the action by the Ministry of Education was beyond mere quota system of selecting students to public schools.

Mzimba Hora MP Christopher Ngwira also commented on the issue, describing the quota system as offensive and a thorn in the flesh of people of the North.

Ngwira demanded an explanation from the  Minister of Education for what he described as a provocation of the ‘northerners’.

According to a list of the selected students to Nkhata Bay Secondary School circulating on various social media platforms, there is no student from any school in the Northern Region districts, but Lilongwe, Kasungu, Nkhotakota, Dowa and Salima in the Central Region.

But Minister of Education, Science and Technology Emmanuel Fabiano, responding to the accusations in Parliament yesterday, said Mzuzu Diocese of the Catholic Church, which runs Nkhata Bay Secondary School, has an agreement with government that 60 percent of the selection should be done by government and 40 percent by the church.

He said 33 students from Nkhata Bay were selected to schools such as Chaminade, St John Bosco, Kaseye and Mzuzu Government, which are national secondary schools.

Fabiano said this is part of the agreements between government aided national secondary schools of which six out of 19 are in the Northern Region.

He said the North has 10 district boarding schools compared to 17 in the Central Region and 16 in the Southern Region.

Of the 679 community day secondary schools, 170 are in the North, 256 in the Centre and 253 in the South.

Fabiano said such statistics were an indication that there were adequate schools for a population of the Northern Region, which is 17 percent of the nation.

But his responses did not satisfy the two MPs who brought the matter to Parliament and Second Deputy Speaker Clement Chiwaya booted Ngwira out of the House after the legislator refused to accept Chiwaya’s instruction to stop speaking and sit down.

Other People’s Party MPs walked out with him in solidarity.

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2 Comments

  1. IF DPP GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO PUT THORNS INTO THE FRESH OF NORTHERNERS, NORTHERNERS TOO NEED TO PUT THORNS INTO THE FRESH OF DPP IN A TIT FOR TAT GAME.GOING BY THE MINSTERS ARGUMENT, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT DPP TACTIC HERE IS TO BRING HATRED BETWEEN THOSE FROM THE NORTH AND CENTRE BUT THIS IS NOW BEYOND QUOTA SYSTEM.

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