Concerned students dubbed Digital Inclusion Campaign (DIC) Team-Malawi have petitioned government seeking reduction in cost of internet data for students in Malawi.

According to the students, although the digital wave has come to stay, its facilitation and sustainability suffer from the lack of inclusively accessible internet and other related factors.

Reads part of the petition: “As we all witnessed the devastating effects that the outbreak of recent COVID-19 has had on the country’s education sector due to backwardness of Malawi’s education system.

“The sector was largely unprepared for such outbreaks as it was required to shift from in-person learning to a digitalised form of learning as the only means to keep education moving. It was an eye opening scenario as the nation showed no direction concerning learning.”

DIC-Malawi Team, which led demonstrations in Lilongwe on Tuesday, said most students across the country’s tertiary institutions cannot afford the prohibitively high internet cost.

“This challenge necessitates the efforts by the government of Malawi to develop a pandemic-resilient education sector to ensure access to quality education which remains the only hope for Malawi to achieve her much desired vision by 2063,” further reads the petition.

In his remarks, Lilongwe District Commissioner Lawford Palani acknowledged receiving the petition and assured the concerned students that it will be submitted to responsible Ministry for Information and Digitalisation.

He said: “I am happy that their constitutional right has been heard and they have done what they wanted to do, the role of the DC is to make sure that delivers the petition to the rightful people, so honestly I will deliver it to the Ministry of Information.”

The concerned students observe that to achieve her desire and resolution, Malawi’s industrialisation must be driven by research, science and technology development in order to become and remain productive, innovative and highly competitive both at regional and global levels.

DIC-Malawi Team is pushing for affordable internet data cost for students in Malawi, education Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Policy development and implementation in Malawi and ICT infrastructure development in education institutions for students in Malawi.