Parliamentary committee visits MUST

The Parliamentary Committee on Education, Science and Technology on March 19, 2020 visited the Malawi University of Science and Technology to appreciate the challenges facing the institution so as to ably support its budget in the House.
Speaking during a meeting and before a tour of various facilities at MUST campus in Thyolo, Committee chairperson Honourable Brenax Kaise said by visiting the university, they will help them to make well informed contributions during the budget session.
“This Committee is there for you. If you want us to support you on anything related to education, science and technology, we are and we will be there for you. As such, we need to understanding your situation for us to play our role effectively,” he said.
During the meeting, the Committee members were briefed about the university’s need for more resources in light of its various challenges in student and staff accommodation, purpose built laboratory construction project, mini-industrial park development, furniture and transportation of staff, among others.
The members also sought clarification on a number of issues.
For example, Honourable Henry Chimunthu Banda wanted to know if MUST is supporting innovations by community members in addition to those by staff and students.
In her response, MUST Vice Chancellor Professor Address Malata said the university is not only working with community members on innovations but industry players as well.
“There is a boy from Mulanje who developed a maize mill and won an MBC Innovations award, we enrolled that boy at Zomba Catholic Secondary School and we are paying for his fees. The aim was to expose him to science and technology facilities that would inspire him to innovate more,” said Professor Malata.
“We have also visited a number of innovators in the communities to see how best we can support them. And recently, the Centre for Innovation and Industrial Research has created a programme that will support innovations from staff, students, industry players and community members.
On expanding access to higher education, Professor Malata said the university is working with partners under SHEAMA project to enroll students under Open, Distance and E-Learning (ODeL) where all public universities in Malawi will share resources such as satellite campuses by enrolling students and delivering content. This means in no time, MUST will extend its services through ODeL across Malawi as some of the public universities already have satellite campuses in all corners of Malawi.
On her part, Nsanje North MP, Honourable Esther Mcheka Chilenje asked the university to explore ways of supporting government in reducing its reliance on importation.
“We want to see MUST taking lead in innovation, technology development and value addition so that we can start manufacturing some of the things we import. In so doing, we will create jobs afor Malawians and save the country’s low foreign exchange reserves. I would appreciate if you focused on agriculture as Malawi’s economic mainstay,” she said.
The university, through Thyolo South MP, Mavuto Sandram Scott, was asked to ensure that it was accessible by persons with disability, arguing people believe that MUST was deliberately not willig to enroll students with disabilities. He was assured that the university was doing everything to enable it support students with all types of disabilities.
It was learnt during the discussions that MUST has a shortfall of K580 million to put up its mini industrial park, which will host industries belonging to its four schools and will offer students in various programmes opportunities for hands-on experience.
Rumphi Central legislator, Chidumba Mkandawire urged MUST to explore other sources of income as government alone cannot support its activities. Apparently, the university is already advanced in its efforts to generate more income outside government subvention and was focusing on research, commercialization of innovations, value addition to various agriculture produce and establishment of an endowment funds.
At the end of the meeting, the Committee promised to call for a meeting that will bring private sector players, the Public Private Partnership Commission to see how best the private sector can support some infrastructure projects in universities such as hostels, staff houses and others.
This followed review of challenges that have rocked the student accommodation project in public universities which the PPPC was championing. The project has dragged for years yet universities are struggling with student accommodation.
Other members of the Committee that visited MUST were honourable legislators for Blantyre Kabula, Gertrude Nankhumwa, Blantyre Malabada’s Ishmael Mkumba, Chikwawa South’s Ilyas Abdul Karim, and Phalombe North’s Anna Kachikho, and Blantyre City East’s John Bande,