Clarifying on Mzuni

Clarifying on Mzuni BY ANANIYA ALICK PONJE (Second Year student at Chancellor College) University of Malawi (Unima) Council’s decision to re-introduce quota system in selecting students into it various constituent colleges has attracted a lot of controversy since the media broke the news. It has brought into the picture some arguments which create very irrelevant implications. I am not interested in commenting on this otherwise thorny issue but on a certain set of arguments that have emanated from different commentators who have said something on the quota system issue. My concern is mostly on some arguments which tend to imply that Mzuzu University (Mzuni) is inferior to Unima. There have been arguments like: “Students who fail to be admitted into Unima constituent colleges on a residential basis can join the colleges on a non-residential basis. Still more, the remaining ones may join Mzuzu University. It is the phrase “the remaining ones” which I feel is erroneous and leads to a very misconceived conclusion. From this line of argument, it may be appropriately inferred that Mzuni is for those who have qualified for university selection but cannot be recruited into Unima constituent colleges due to limited bed space. It is like Mzuni is for remnants, something which is absolutely not the case. Far from that! Mzuni plays no second fiddle to Unima. It is a university in its own and by all means and never sub-standard. While it has to be appreciated that Mzuni was only established about a decade ago, we have to be mindful of the fact that the university does have all necessary resources and courses that make it no lesser than Unima. Unima is indeed an old established institution that has done numerous researches for its own good governance and choice of that should be followed as regards some of its courses offered by its constituent colleges, but that does not mean that Mzuni is inferior. Though the fact of how established an institution is matters, the courses that are offered and their relevance in the corporate world is one aspect that is at the centre of consideration. Mzuni offers some courses which are also offered by Unima and this does not make it any lesser. In fact, there are some courses which are offered by international colleges or universities which are not offered by any other institution in Malawi other than Mzuni. Most of these are new courses which have just come onto the scene and cannot be easily adopted into the old systems. Now there is a directive that a student who has been selected to Mzuni cannot be selected to Unima constituent colleges as well. (But it appears this directive is not yet practical). This is to level the playing field so that some students are not shortchanged. In the past, a Mzuni student would write University of Malawi entrance exams and find their way into Unima and vice versa. This was even if the student had been withdrawn on academic grounds. Last year, a good number of Mzuni students left the university and joined Unima because of the picture that is being painted about Mzuni, which implies that it is inferior to Unima. The trend of students switching universities at their free will continues exploiting university education where some shift whenever they feel like doing so while others fail to find themselves in the public universities. This is because there is no second selection for university education, at least in Malawi, and the moment one shifts the gap remains unfilled forever. The students who shift from one university/college to another “spend in vain” government resources which would be used for others. Just imagine, some students are first recruited at the Malawi College of Health Sciences (MCHS), then they apply for admission at Mzuni and they are successful. Then after some time, they apply for admission into Unima and they make it. The spaces that they leave behind would be filled by some students who failed to make it due to limited space but this is not the case because there is no second selection. Perhaps with MCHS, there always is a waiting list in cases of those who fail to report for classes. But this anomaly cannot be addressed if the student has attended classes for a whole year only to abandon the college. A student who has been selected to Mzuni is in no way inferior to the one who is in Unima. Qualification for Unima is not different from qualification for Mzuni, barring the fact that Unima conducts entrance examinations. Otherwise, it is the same six credits including English at MSCE. The only distinction might be in the academic calendar. It is this distinction in the academic calendar that tempts some students to switch from Mzuni to Unima and vice versa. The fact of the matter is that both of them offer degrees as academic qualifications and are under the same Chancellor. They are both universities, after all. Therefore, my appeal to authorities is that they should make sure that some students are not allowed to exploit university education at the expense of others. It is absurd to see some students find themselves at three different public institutions of higher learning within the same year while their colleagues lack the same. This is usually “in search of the best”.