MALAWI: Exam Results & more – 20th Aug 2024

Muli bwanji from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 20th of August twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

The results for the Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education and the Junior Certificate of Education examinations are now out. Students took the exams in June.

Eighty-six percent of the students who sat for the Primary School exams, and seventy-one percent of the Junior Certificate students passed the tests.

The Malawi National Examinations Board (or MANEB) said the top-performing districts for both exams were Zomba Urban, Rumphi and Mzuzu City, while the worst-performing districts were Chiradzulu, Mzimba South, and Nkhotakota. It has since become a running joke on social media that children from the country's major cities, Blantyre and Lilongwe, were too busy making TikTok videos to pass their exams as most TikTok accounts belong to secondary school students.

More on the tests as MANEB digitalized access to exam results. For the first time ever, parents were able to check their children's examination results through MANEB's website. Before this, they had to physically go to their child's school.

With the new system, parents only need to enter the student's exam number and date of birth in a link that MANEB provided on their public platforms.

Still on new developments, the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (or MACRA) shared its plans to establish a smartphone assembly line. Daud Suleman, the MACRA Director General, made the revelation during a National Youth Conversation Series three, which was part of the events of the twenty twenty-four International Youth Day.

Suleman told local media that not many people have digital technologies, and one of the biggest reasons is the high cost of smart devices. To help improve access to these technologies, MACRA wants to establish an assembly line where imported smartphone parts will be assembled locally. He said this would cut down on import costs, which contribute to the high prices of digital gadgets.

On the other hand, the United Nations Development Program (or UNDP) has already started materializing its own plans. They launched an electric vehicle on Monday the 19th. They said this is part of the organization's green transformation agenda, which helps vulnerable countries overcome persistent climate risks by providing access to renewable energy.

Fenella Frost, the UNDP Resident Representative, said they aim to increase the usage of electric vehicles by seventy-five percent in the next five years. She has called upon multiple stakeholders to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

While commenting on the development, Ibrahim Matola, the Minister of Energy, said electric vehicles are crucial in contributing to Malawi’s economic transformation, since the vehicles will help reduce the country's import bill.

Speaking of vehicles, Malawi has recovered a few of them that had been stolen.

On Monday the 19th, the police said they arrested 696 people and recovered stolen items, including motor vehicles and medicine. The police had been running a three-day joint operation called Operation Kutwa to fight transnational crimes in the Southern African Development Community, such as human trafficking, motor vehicle theft, and smuggling.

Peter Kalaya, the National Police Spokesperson, explained that Malawi’s borders are porous, making it easy for criminals to pass through or commit their crimes locally. He said that some of the arrested criminals were suspects in other local crimes such as robberies, rape and housebreaking.

Moving on, there was a commotion in Blantyre city on Thursday the 15th after a section of Mount Soche Hotel caught fire.

Temwa Kanjadza, the Hotel's Head of Sales, Marketing and Distribution, told local media that the blaze started in the rubble in the maintenance department. She added that, fortunately, no serious apartments or essential sections of the hotel were affected.

She also assured that the hotel is still operational, and that all their guests will be safe as Mount Soche is working on preventive measures to avoid similar accidents in the future.

Unfortunately, their word doesn't give much faith, as they are yet to find out what caused the fire.

JTI Leaf Malawi Limited in Lilongwe also went up in flames on Sunday the 19th. The flames caused substantial damage, as the fire erupted in the room that JTI Leaf uses to store various goods including their tobacco.

Even though the extent of the damage is yet to be quantified, the management at JTI Leaf said they assume it is a lot since everything in that room was lost in the flames.

Local media said at first, the Fire Department tried to put their fire out, but it got so bad that they had to ask for help from the Malawi Defence Force Air Base and the Civil Aviation.

Gideon Mwanza, the Acting Manager at the Lilongwe Fire Department, said the fire started in the morning and went on till the evening. He also said they are yet to establish the cause of the blaze.

However, these fires are the least of the locals' worries; as Malwian doctors said there might be a monkeypox virus case in the country.

Some African countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Rwanda have reported cases of the monkeypox virus, which the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency.

On Tuesday the 20th, the Blantyre District Health Office told local news that they suspect that a patient at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital has mpox.

Dr. Gift Kawalazira, the Director of Health and Social Services for Blantyre, said the patient was referred to Queens from the Chikwawa District Hospital for other medical issues, but the doctors at Queens noted some signs of mpox. Unfortunately, they didn’t say what those signs were.

Still, Dr. Kawalazira emphasized that they are yet to confirm whether it is monkeypox. He said they are still investigating.

In other trending topics, bus service Royal Coaches has called off its services until further notice. Their fleet of buses transports locals across the country, especially between Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu cities.

On Thursday the 15th, Royal Coaches announced that they had temporarily halted their operations to make way for vehicle maintenance. They did not say when they would be back on the road. They only said they'd give an update on their social media pages when they are ready.

There were accusations of bad management against the Royal Services, saying it does not make sense that all their buses have to be maintained at the same time.

Meanwhile, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services has finally opened all its doors again. They halted passport production in January and have been restoring those services gradually. They stopped due to a technical error which was fixed in March.

On Monday the 19th, the Department announced that their Mangochi offices would resume printing passports on Tuesday the 20th. This means people from the Eastern region won’t have to travel to Blantyre in the South, Lilongwe in the Central region, or Mzuzu in the North, to get their passports printed.

Next up, President Lazarus Chakwera received an honorary doctorate degree in International Cooperation from the Joaquim Chissano University from Mozambique.

In his acceptance speech, Chakwera said he believed he received the honorary doctorate due to his efforts to improve international cooperation between several nations.

This time, Chakwera did not receive much pushback for his statement or his achievement.

Impakt Events, the organizers of The Sand Music Festival, announced the event’s cancellation on Tuesday the 20th.

The festival was set to take place from the 27th to the 29th of September at Sunbird Nkopola in Mangochi town, but the organizers said they decided to cancel everything after Lucius Banda, their founder and manager, died. Banda was a legendary musician, who died in June after a long illness.

They will honor Banda in a festival set for the same dates next year.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Pitani bwino!