By Cathy Maulidi:
Out of 154,132 candidates who sat this year’s Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations, 83,846 have passed, representing a pass rate of 54.40 percent.
Announcing the results in Lilongwe Wednesday, Maneb Executive Director Dorothy Nampota said this is a decline as compared to last year’s pass rate, which was at 58.44 percent.
Out of 72,056 female candidates who sat examinations, 34,721 have passed, representing 48.15 percent pass rate.
Out of 82,076 male candidates who sat examinations, 49,125 have passed, representing 59.85 percent pass rate.
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“Out of 531 Special Needs Education (SNE) candidates that sat this examination, 305 have passed, representing 57.44 percent pass rate, and out of 273 male SNE candidates that sat this examination, 160 have passed while out of 258 female SNE candidates that sat this examination, 145 have passed,” Nampota said.
Dedza has been named the best performing district while Machinga is the worst performing district.
The top 10 performing education districts are Dedza, Zomba Urban, Chitipa, Karonga, Dowa, Mzuzu City, Phalombe, Nkhotakota, Mulanje and Likoma, in that order.
The bottom 10 education districts include Machinga, Nsanje, Thyolo, Lilongwe City, Zomba Rural, Blantyre Rural, Chikwawa, Lilongwe Rural East, Rumphi and Balaka.
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“Out of 39,957 candidates that sat the examination at conventional secondary schools, 27,193 have passed, representing 68.06 percent pass rate, and out of 76,972 candidates that sat the examination at community day secondary schools, 35,046 have passed, representing 45.53 percent pass rate,” Nampota said.
Out of 37,203 candidates that sat the examination at private secondary schools, 21,607 have passed, representing 58.08 percent pass rate.
Nampota lamented that community day secondary schools (CDSSs) have not done well in the examinations, such that others have completely failed.
The schools with zero pass rate are Phembe CDSS in Mzimba South, Chaboli CDSS from Mzimba North, Chivumbe CDSS in Blantyre Rural and Mbongozi CDSS of Kasungu.
“My appeal to the Ministry of Education is that you should do something about the situation in these schools,” she said.
Commenting on the results, quality education advocate Benedicto Kondowe described the downward trend in the pass rate as an indication of an education in crisis.
“The drop signals the challenging task that the leadership and planners at the Ministry of Education have to rethink and reengineer a new pathway for a well-functioning education system. The results further show that the different reforms in the sector are failing to yield the needed dividend through improved performance,” Kondowe said.
