By Prisca Mashushu

Lilongwe, September 18, Mana: Federation of Disability Organizations in Malawi (FEDOMA) says is satisfied with the increased number of students with disabilities who have passed the 2024 Malawi School Certificate Examinations (MSCE).

FEDOMA Project Coordinator, Lyson Mapanga highlighted that increase of the number of students with disabilities passing exams is an indication of FEDOMA's efforts in ensuring that the rights of disabled children are observed.

“As an organization, we are pleased with the number of disability students’ performance who sat for the MSCE this year and they should be appreciated in a special way as they face various challenges in order to access quality education.

“We would like to thank the Ministry of Education for providing all necessary resources and support and other basic needs to students with disabilities to ensure they access their education," he explained.

However, Mapanga appealed to different stakeholders including the government, Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb), Malawi Union of the Blind and others to continue supporting students with different special needs to be given special consideration while accessing their education for the betterment of their performance.

He pointed out that students with disabilities face tremendous challenges including discrimination, lack of access to technology resources used for education purposes and proper care during learning hours.

Concurring with Mapanga, Education expert Douglas Nyirenda said the success observed highlights government’s commitment in the provision and promotion of education which implies that Malawi is on course towards achieving Malawi agenda 2063 that aims at promoting inclusion of people of all statuses.

“In the just released MSCE results students with special needs scored 55.59 percent pass rate which is a commendable figure compared to previous years as well as the history of special needs education.

“This also signifies that government is working tirelessly to provide adequate teaching, learning and assessment resources to help learners who have special needs," he said.

Nyirenda said government and other stakeholders should follow different strategies to provide more support to learners with special needs including increasing number of specialist teachers in all government schools to respond positively to such students.

“Government should also offer continuous professional development courses to help students with special needs and provide more material resources in schools for example construction of friendly usable schools as one way of promoting education among special need students,” he explained.

About 734 special needs students sat for the examination and 411 have passed the examinations representing 55.99 percent.