This year’s intake of the University of Malawi has provided an opportunity for Islamic secondary schools in the country to go back to the drawing board.
Combining all the secondary schools, together they have managed to produce only 25 students that have been admitted into the University of Malawi with Dedza Girls Islamic Secondary School contributing more students.
According to UNIMA press release, a total of 8507 candidates sat for the 2012 University Entrance Examinations (UEE) and out of these, 2559 were females while 5948 were males representing 30% and 70% respectively. From the total given above, 6373 candidates passed the 2012 University Entrance Examinations. Out of the candidates that passed, 1647 were females and 4726 males.
From these, a total of 908 candidates have been admitted into the University of Malawi.
Dedza Girls Islamic Secondary School has produced 9 students, 3 students have made it from Assalaam girls. Mangochi based Assalaam Boys Secondary School has produced only 1 student while Mama Khadija Girls Academy has managed to contribute 6 students.
Al Bakir Boys and Zomba High school have only managed to produce 1 student each and 3 students have made it from Lilongwe Islamic Boys Secondary School with 2 students coming from the Blantyre based Bangwe Islamic Private School.
Meanwhile, Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) has attributed the marginal number of students selected to the University of Malawi to financial constraints.
The association’s executive member Sheikh Ali Kennedy said that most teachers in the Islamic secondary schools are paid poor salaries.
“Teachers are receiving salaries which they don’t deserve because they are supposed to be paid handsomely so that they should up their input in teaching the pupils,” he said.
Most of the Islamic schools are run by Islamic Non governmental Organisations including MAM which operates Bangwe Islamic, Balaka, Ntaja and Zomba high School.
May be we concentrate too much on religious activities. May be we are too mindful of the world hereafter hence the desire to accumulate “thawab” as much as possible. May be it is high time that we realized that life here on earth also needs to be lived, hence the need to also concentrate on those activities which make life here on earth comfortable and respectable.