Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) has disclosed that it expects to spend not less than K3.6 billion in administering this year’s Standard 8, Form 4 and Primary Teacher Certificate examinations.
Addressing journalists in Blantyre Tuesday, Maneb Executive Director Gerald Chiunda said 302,968 students are expected to sit for Standard 8 examinations while 154,146 others will sit for Form 4 examinations.
“If you look at the entire processes up to actual administration of the examinations, it cannot be less than K3.6 billion but if you are looking at the actual administration like paying of allowances, transport and others then we will need K1 billion” Chiunda said.
He, however, could not say how much the board spent last year saying he needed to check with the office.
Chinunda said the examination body expects to pay the examinations’ administrators before the actual examinations dates.
“We don’t want the administrators to be tempted into bribes during administration of the examinations. We expect them to be professional and we expect the candidates to sit for the examinations because government has spent a lot of money on this.
“To uphold the credibility of examinations, Maneb has put in place necessary security measures to prevent examination malpractices. However, the responsibility of ensuring that the malpractices are not taking place rests with each and every individual,” he said.
Chiunda said most of the work in preparation for the examinations was completed even before the schools were closed in March this year.
He then said Maneb will not print new question papers despite the change of the dates.
“We will not be able to change the dates and times for the papers. However, to ensure that officers at the examination distribution centres do not open examination cartons on wrong dates, we re-labelled each and every carton with the new dates.
“Furthermore, arrangements are at advanced stage to have Airtel and TNM sending SMS alert messages to all officers assigned to distribution centres guiding them on which examination cartons to open,” he said.
Chiunda also said preparations for the 2021 Junior Certificate of Education examinations are on course.