Schools observe ‘public holiday’ for elections
Most schools in cities and towns remained closed three days after Malawians voted in Tuesday’s tripartite elections despite government announcement that there was no public holiday.
A snap survey conducted by The Nation on Thursday in Blantyre revealed passive business in most private and public schools as pupils have not been attending classes since voting started.
The situation was reportedly the same in Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Balaka with teachers in some schools reporting for work only to find empty classrooms while others completely shied away.
But classes in most secondary schools have been going on normally except those being used by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) as tally centres.
Just like elsewhere, schools are preferred venues for voting due to the facilities on hand and low cost when election administrators host voters.
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology spokesperson Rebecca Phwitiko confirmed in an interview that some schools were indeed closed as of yesterday.
“As you may be aware a number of schools served as polling sites or tally centres and in such cases school heads and district education officers made arrangements to accommodate the election process. As polling continued on yesterday in some centres this arrangement was upheld,” said Phwitiko.
She also said there were a number of schools where elections riots damaged property particularly in Blantyre.
In Blantyre, the election violence that erupted on Tuesday is likely to disrupt the forthcoming Primary School Leaving Certificate Education (PSLCE) examinations due next week, after irate voters destroyed school property.
