{"id":23538,"date":"2025-11-12T18:51:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=23538"},"modified":"2025-11-12T18:51:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:51:35","slug":"malawi-catholic-university-academic-highlights-impoverishment-and-injustice-in-education-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/malawi-catholic-university-academic-highlights-impoverishment-and-injustice-in-education-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"MALAWI: Catholic University Academic Highlights Impoverishment and Injustice in Education Sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Luke Bisani <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Rev. Fr. Benedict Zele, an academic at the Catholic University of Malawi, has expressed concern about the impoverishment and the normalization of injustices faced by learners in the country.<\/p>\n<p>During a public lecture titled &#8220;Attenuating Harmful Socialization in Institutions of Higher Learning: The Paramount Importance of Critical Self-Reflection for Authentic Transformation,&#8221; Fr. Zele discussed the significant gap between students from Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSS) and those selected for national secondary schools and higher education.<\/p>\n<p>Fr. Zele pointed out that although many learners attend CDSS, their opportunities for admission into institutions of higher learning are limited due to a lack of resources.<\/p>\n<p>He referenced the 2025 National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) public university selection list, which showed that at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHES), only 1 of 112 MBBS (Bachelor of Surgery and Medicine) program students selected came from a CDSS. None were chosen for Dental Surgery, Pharmacy, or Medical Laboratory Sciences.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_23536\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23536\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23536\" src=\"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Fr.-Zele-with-Learners-from-Chikuli-CDSS-in-Blantyre-300x227.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Fr.-Zele-with-Learners-from-Chikuli-CDSS-in-Blantyre-300x227.jpg 300w, https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Fr.-Zele-with-Learners-from-Chikuli-CDSS-in-Blantyre-100x76.jpg 100w, https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Fr.-Zele-with-Learners-from-Chikuli-CDSS-in-Blantyre.jpg 494w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23536\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fr. Zele with Learners from Chikuli CDSS in Blantyre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Highlighting the problem, Fr. Zele noted that &#8220;the majority of candidates being prepared as change agents appear to be products of an inequitable system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He shared troubling statistics indicating that CDSS learners comprise 75% of the secondary school population, according to a 2021 USAID report.<\/p>\n<p>Fr. Zele called for strategies to address the disadvantages faced by CDSS learners in gaining entry to higher education.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that many students end up in CDSS due to poverty, which severely impacts their educational opportunities from a young age.<\/p>\n<p>In conclusion, Fr. Zele quoted Bell Hooks, an American scholar who said: &#8220;To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continue to do to undermine all that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Luke Bisani Rev. Fr. Benedict Zele, an academic at the Catholic University of Malawi, has&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23539,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23538\/revisions\/23539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}