Lilongwe awards 2020 PSLCE best performing schools

Lilongwe District Education Office has awarded four schools that performed exceptionally well in the 2020 Primary School Leaving Certificate of Education (PSLCE) examination.

The schools are Pingambuto which is also number one in the whole country, Thawale, number two in the country, Chimgonera, number three in Lilongwe and number five in the country while Ndaula is number four in Lilongwe and number six in the country.

Speaking during the awarding ceremony held in the Lilongwe District Council chamber over the weekend, Director of Education, Youth and Sports, Dr. Martha Sineta, said they decided to come up with the initiative as one way of encouraging teachers, the schools and the community.

Sineta said this is the first time that Lilongwe is doing this kind of ceremony saying it is an initiative that has been introduced and will be done every year.

She said “It is not a mean achievement for the schools to outsmart all schools in the country. We wanted to appreciate and show them that we acknowledge the hard work they are doing and also encourage other schools to emulate the same.”

Meanwhile, the education office is lobbying for support for the initiative to be fruitful and give a great prize while at the same time ensuring improved learning environment in the schools.

“We are ensuring that we construct classroom blocks, toilets, teachers’ houses and we hope that these are the best things that we can give to the schools. We believe that the prizes that we should give to the schools should benefit everyone,” said Sineta.

Sineta encouraged all teachers to continue working hard and committing themselves even under hard circumstances for the benefit of the country stressing that for Malawi to develop, there is need to invest in the learner.

Lilongwe District Council Chairperson, Councilor Luciano Botomani, commended Lilongwe Education Office for the initiative saying it is a heavy motivation tool to the schools.

He also commended teachers and the community for the team work and the good job they are doing in encouraging and making sure that the learners are doing well.

He said Lilongwe District Council is happy that the schools have put Lilongwe district on the map.

He assured the teachers that as a Council, they will render their support wherever needed to improve the education standards in the district.

Speaking on behalf of other schools, headteacher of Pingambuto Primary School, in Lilongwe Rural East, Masautso London, said they are happy to be recognized as number one primary school that got 100% pass rate in the 2020 PSCLE examination.

He said the secret to this commitment is the teachers, the learners as well as the community members have.

“I am glad to say that there is great team work at our school and that is why we managed to achieve this,” he said.

We also acknowledge the role that the community play because they always make sure that teachers are always working and deliver the best.

However, London said despite the achievement, there are a lot of challenges that the schools are facing such teaching and learning materials and as such appealed to government and other well-wishers should come in and help them.

“Apart from these challenges, we have learners that are coming from poor families and once they are selected to secondary schools, they are failing to go because of lack of school fees and other needs.

“As it is now, we have a number of learners that were selected to national secondary schools but they are in community day secondary schools because their parents cannot manage to provide schools fees,” he said.

Pingambuto School had 29 learners who sat for the PSLCE examination and 20 of them were selected to national secondary schools, seven to conventional secondary schools and two to community day secondary schools representing a 100% pass rate.