Roars of Renaissance

By Pacharo Felix Munthali
Seasons change. There are times of reaching the heights. Then there are the times of falling down, and sinking very low as if you will never rise up. But when you are down there is always hope of rising, and when that hope comes there is no turning back. This perhaps fits Chancellor College.
Sometime on Monday in March last year at about 7:30 am, all classes that were meant to take place at the time were cancelled. The Principal of Chancellor College Dr Luis Fabiano was addressing the College community of his vision after years of college down turn.
In his introduction, he had said “the mandate of universities focuses on advancement of knowledge and promotion of wisdom and understanding.” To realize this, the universities engage themselves in teaching, research, outreach programmes and provision of services as is “responsive to the needs of the nation and the world.”
This is very much in line with the vision of the University of Malawi, which Fabiano said is “to be an academic institution providing relevant world class education, research and services for sustainable development of Malawi and the world.”
The vision is a bright one. The college can thus attain unimaginable heights. This comes out of a state of ruins that the college has found itself. The infrastructure that more than three decades ago glittered with majesty of beauty was at the time of address entangled in all sorts of moulds.
“For the first time in many decades, the government has decided to provide funds for rehabilitation and infrastructure development,” the Principal had said before a jam-packed Great Hall.
The College has limped in its attempt to leap out of infrastructure mess due to lack of rehabilitation. Little by little, however, the college is trying to crawl out of the problem. That coupled with restructuring, though unfortunately for those that got retrenched, the college is striving to wear a new face.
Today, the college might still be roaring in problems of lack of chairs and other problems, but as students are carrying chairs from one class to another, from a distant noise of trucks and Lorries can be heard.
The noise today may disturb the students that are learning in the law section, but it is the roar of hope. Edge Kanyongolo, the Dean of Law, as he looks around inside his office nods, this is not nothing – it is the project that is not only a sigh of relief to law faculty, but to the whole college. Long at last, the college is expanding.
“We got the money ourselves from the donors,” he says referring to the European Union. The European Union has a programme of the Rule of Law and has been helping the faculty in various ways. The piles of the books in Machika library are the example. Some of the international competitions that the students from the faculty enter are sponsored by EU.
The faculty realized that they had nowhere to keep their books. Space was limited. The faculty through the programmes sponsored by the Rule of Law got the help. The construction of the infrastructure must be completed by late 2009 or early 2010.
The expansion is seen as the opportunity for more – not only in number of intake of students but also facilities. Currently the majority of the lecturers have no offices, but once the project is completed about fifteen offices must be ready for lectures to use. Each class will accommodate as much as sixty students. At present in each law class there are less than forty students.
The students and their lecturers will no longer have to use Little Theatre for mock trials. A mock court room with court room standards is in the offing too.
Just about 100 metres from the Little Theatre another important project is going on. The faculty of education is also electing its infrastructure. The erecting of such infrastructure is a reaction to the secondary school sector which “has been expanding with many new conventional and private secondary schools.”
As Dr Dixie Maluwa Banda, the outgoing Dean of Education thinks on the pressure that is piled on teachers training institutions, says “the current in take has been limited by space available and financial hardships due to low funding levels.” This has resulted in an increased pressure on demand for qualified teachers.
As part of increasing intake of students at the college apart from the project, the outgoing Dean says, one way of opening up education is by the introduction of parallel programme for education students.
The outgoing Dean says the project is long overdue. “Delay due to the World Bank’s IPC procedure it’s a nightmare. The construction that is starting right now, would have been done two years ago,” Maluwa Banda says.
Once the infrastructure is put in place, the outgoing dean says, a number of postgraduate programmes are supposed to increase in numbers. The programme is one part that the World Bank’ funding to the Ministry of Education called Education Sector Support project (ESSP) which is helping training institutions that are dealing with education. Other institutions are the Polytechnic and Mzuzu University.
Chancellor College might not be there, but gradually the journey is on. Kanyongolo agrees with this statement. But still he concurs with the outgoing dean of Education, “College is overdue for expansion.” Kanyongolo only hopes that the University of Malawi will help other faculties to follow suit.
A number of bright and intelligent students have qualified for selection. Unfortunately out of more than 2000 students that qualify for selection less than 1000 get selected. One of the reasons that are attributed to them not being selected is lack of enough space.
As the Principal one of these days will once again be speaking to the college community, perhaps opening the new infrastructure, the fight towards rebirthing Chancellor College as top notched institution is still going on. Chancellor College is striving to remark its lost glory that little by little has been replaced with tatters. This is the period of renaissance; a new breeze is sweeping through Chancellor College. The College is trying to redefine itself. The construction works are just a part of it.