Maneb defends 2012 exam results, insists it gave the ministry correct data

Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) has denied that it connived with the government and doctored last year’s examination results, saying the board is run by an independent Board of Directors with statutory authority to manage national examinations.

Maneb Executive Director Roy Hauya said this in a statement released on Tuesday in response Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) statement of December 31, 2012, demanding an inquiry into the whole examination.

“Maneb refutes in the strongest terms the suggestion made in the CSEC statement to the effect that [the] government and Maneb ‘doctored the results’ or that ‘Maneb was directed by the government to revisit the results in order to avoid embarrassment’.

“Malawians are being assured that neither Ministry of Education nor the government influences the processing of examinations and final decisions that Maneb makes on results,” reads the statement in part.

Hauya says Maneb stands by the “fact” that the 2012 MSCE results were correct and stand by the Ministry of Education’s initiative to publish MSCE results on annual basis in the interest of accountability, transparency and sustaining public engagement in education in the country.

Hauya further said Malawians should be assured that as a professional body, it has always pursued an established System of Standard Setting and Awards that is internationally recognised, hence could not tamper with pass rates to gain numbers.

He, therefore, says Maneb sees no reason to institute a commission of inquiry into the examinations when it gave correct data to the Ministry on the said examination results.

The matter emanated from the outrage from the Independent Schools Association of Malawi (Isama) who trashed the 2012 MSCE results report by the ministry, calling it ‘a false compilation of incorrect information’.

The ministry admitted that there were some anomalies in this year’s Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) results for some private schools and promised to rectify the error.

Maneb maintains it gave the ministry correct data.