CSEC STATEMENT ON THE APPOINTMENT OF COUNCILS OF UNIMA, MUBAS AND KUHeS

Lilongwe- Tuesday, 2nd August, 2021.

The Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) welcomes government’s decision to constitute the Councils given that the appointments were long overdue after the commencement date of 4th May 2021 was gazetted. We are confident that the appointees will contribute to the establishment, operations, and development of the higher education sector, in general and in UNIMA (Act No.

18 of 2019), MUBAS (Act №19 of 2019) and KUHeS (Act №20 of 2019) in particular. The establishment of UNIMA, MUBAS and KUHeS as standalone universities presents a great opportunity for the expansion and growth of tertiary education in Malawi.

Whilst we laud the appointment of the Councils, CSEC wishes to express some startling observations in the recent appointments in anticipation that there would be order and due objectivity in future appointments. The following are the observations:

1) The appointment of a Vice Chancellor of LUANAR as Chairperson of the Council of MUBAS raises questions of legitimacy and conflict of interest given that both LUANAR and MUBAS are public universities and that the same contradicts the most touted public sector reforms. We are aware that a similar issue happened before and attracted criticism from the general public when the then Vice Chancellor of UNIMA was appointed Chairperson of MUST. This was premised on the understanding that a Vice Chancellor is also a member of the Council in line with the prevailing laws hence such an appointment was perceived to erode objectivity in the management of the two institutions. As a competitor, the decisions of the Chairperson of the Council of MUBAS may be misunderstood because of his other role. Therefore, to avoid such potential or perceived bias, the President should have desisted from appointing a Vice Chancellor from a given university to chair a Council of another university.

2) The press release suggests that His Excellency, the President of Malawi is Chancellor of all the three universities. While the competence of the HE is undoubtedly indisputable, we are however of the view that it should have been more efficient for HE to allow another person as Chancellor given how demanding the position is, and that the HE is already Chancellor of other public universities. Section 18 (2) and (3) of all the Acts in question allows the President in consultation with the Council to appoint another person who has distinguished himself to be the Chancellor of the University.

3) The appointment of alumni representatives has not followed the procedure laid out in the Acts. Section 9 (1) (d) of all the three Acts requires that the two alumni members should be nominated by the alumni of the University and appointed by the Chancellor of the University. There is no record of consultation, and failure to satisfy the requirement puts to question the legitimacy of the appointees representing the alumni.

Moving forward, the new councils need to quickly take up their positions and raise the bar in management and governance of these institutions to be more efficient and effective as well as innovative and entrepreneurial in resource mobilization to reduce dependency on government. The new leadership should also ensure that their respective universities provide an environment to test new ideas, debate theories, encounter challenging information, and figure out what one believes.

To all the appointees, we encourage you to be the beacon of hope for the present and future generation for to improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. CSEC subscribes to Ken Robinson’s counsel that “The real role of leadership in education … is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility”.